Play lamenting Confederacy at North Carolina museum canceled

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Officials in North Carolina have denounced plans — now canceled — by a historic museum to put on a reenactment of a white slave owner being pursued by Union soldiers.

The reenactment was scheduled for June 19 - the traditional commemoration date of the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, known as “Juneteenth.”

Officials in Mecklenburg County said via Twitter on Friday that the performances at Latta Plantation Nature Preserve, which among other things would have portrayed Confederate soldiers lamenting the downfall of the Confederacy, would not take place as previously announced.

“We immediately reached out to the organizers and the event was cancelled,” the tweet said.

The county said it has “zero tolerance” for programming that does not represent equity and diversity. As a result, the county said it was reviewing its contract with the facility vendor regarding future programming.

A screen grab from the museum website showed people were invited to the one-night event to hear stories from an actor portraying the owner of an enslaved person during a time when federal troops were pursuing those who owned slaves.

Officials with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday.

While the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the South in 1863, it wasn’t enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War two years later. Confederate soldiers surrendered in April 1865, but word didn’t reach the last enslaved Black people until June 19, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas.

The plantation and museum is described on its webpage as a circa 1800 living history museum and farm, once the site of a cotton plantation. It offers educational and...