WINSTON-SALEM  — Forsyth County is selling its old courthouse building, but hasn't decided what to do with the statue of a Confederate soldier standing sentinel on the square for more than a century.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that plans to sell the closed courthouse building for $700,000 don't include the monument.

County commissioners are debating what to do with the statue the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected in 1905.

Local chapter president Cindy Casey says she doesn't see the statute as a symbol of slavery's defense but a reminder of the history that Winston-Salem and every other Southern community experienced.

Local NAACP president Wayne Patterson says it would be OK to move the monument to the library or some other setting where it could be appreciated as history.