RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s historic State Capitol building will get two new statues — the first since Confederate statues were taken down in 2020 — as part of the new state budget.

The late Rev. Billy Graham, known worldwide as a conservative Christian evangelist preacher whose crusades drew thousands for decades, will be represented on the Capitol grounds near monuments to North Carolinians who served or were killed in wars, or who went on to serve as president or governor.

The pitch for a statue of Graham first came as the state House of Representatives was writing its budget last year, from Gaston County Republican Rep. John Torbett.

The Raleigh statue would be a duplicate of the Graham statue in Congress’ Statuary Hall Collection, Torbett told The N&O in 2025, when the first proposal came out. That plan then became part of this year’s final budget legislation that Gov. Josh Stein signed into law.

“I think it’s very important that we recall our history, and to have that history presented in such a place where most people can come in contact with it. As you know, we put a Billy Graham statue in Statuary Hall. So few people from North Carolina actually come in contact with that,” Torbett said in an interview with The N&O this month.

Graham died in 2018. The statue was given to the U.S. Capitol by the state in 2024 and was created by Chas Fagan, who Torbett hopes will design the same statue for Raleigh, along with a monument to the Revolutionary War that is also in the budget.

“The Billy Graham statue here will be on the grounds of the state Capitol, and thousands of school kids will come by and be able to observe that,” Torbett said.

Torbett said a Revolutionary War statue would depict three people, perhaps in uniform, and is timed to the United States’ 250th anniversary.

The Graham statue in Washington replaced a statue of Charles Aycock, a North Carolina governor and white supremacist. The other North Carolinian in Statuary Hall is Zebulon Vance, a Confederate officer and governor.

The state Capitol also has statues of Aycock and Vance.

Torbett said he had no idea about past proposals for a monument to African Americans on the Capitol grounds. Those proposals came and went in multiple budgets, at times supported by Republicans.

The African Americans monument was in the 2019 state budget that former Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed and which never became law. Then, plans to fund $2 million toward the project were rejected by Republican budget writers after protesters tore down monuments to the Confederacy in 2020 amid the George Floyd protests. Protesters took down some of the Confederate soldier statues on the Capitol grounds, and Cooper ordered the remaining ones removed, including a massive pillar and a monument to Confederate women. In 2023, the African Americans monument again had support, from both Cooper and the Republican-controlled Senate, but it wasn’t in the final budget.

Democratic Gov. Josh Stein proposed $5 million for the African American monument in his 2025 budget proposal.

Stein told The N&O earlier this year that the Capitol grounds is “sacred public ground that should reflect the entirety of North Carolina. And obviously the African American experience in North Carolina has been critical to who we are, and it should be reflected.”

The monuments project will be overseen by Legislative Services Officer Paul Coble, who is in charge of General Assembly buildings as well as other projects, including the NC Education Campus now under construction and the recent replacement of the Capitol roof and dome.

Money for the statues is part of a line item in the budget that includes other Capitol projects. Budget documents show that $15.5 million is allocated “for capital improvements to the building and grounds of the Old State Capitol and planning within the downtown complex.”

The budget provision states that the Legislative Services Office, led by Coble, “shall purchase from state funds and place on the grounds of the State Capitol a monument celebrating North Carolina’s contributions in the Revolutionary War in recognition of America’s Semiquincentennial celebration and a monument honoring the Reverend William Franklin ‘Billy’ Graham, Jr.”

The legislation also adds the LSO as a consultant on most areas of the building, including the rotunda and stairways. It’s part of a continuing shift of control from state agencies under the governor to the legislature.

Republican Senate leader Phil Berger told The N&O as he talked to reporters about the budget that leaders think Coble, a former Raleigh mayor and county commissioner, is doing a good job with what lawmakers previously designated him to manage downtown.

“I think the General Assembly has a good degree of confidence in Mr. Coble’s ability to kind of manage some of these things, and there’s been a lot of work done in (the Legislative Building), the replacement of the roof and several other things,” Berger said.

“We feel that he’s doing a good job as far as the new education campus, so I just think there’s a comfort level there with giving him additional authority to look after some of these things,” he said.

The Education Campus is expected to be completed in late 2027 and open in 2028, Coble told The N&O in an interview in late April. Building designs include an open green space facing Jones Street for schoolchildren and other visitors to gather during visits to downtown. On any given day, school buses of children on field trips arrive in the state government complex to tour the Capitol, Legislative Building or NC Freedom Park.

What’s on the Capitol grounds now

The Capitol building and grounds around it are a symbol of Raleigh and North Carolina itself. The General Assembly moved its business a block away to the Legislative Building when that was built in the 1960s. But the Capitol still has some offices, including for the governor, and it’s a site for historic tours and a gathering place for residents and visitors alike. The Senate held a ceremonial session there on June 30, the same day the budget came out, to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

Everything from protests to parade-watching to picnics happen there, on Union Square in the center of downtown Raleigh. Huge banners celebrating the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup win hang from the building this summer. The grounds also have, among the walking paths and oak trees, several statues. Most relate to wars, from the largest remembering the world wars, to a battlefield scene depicting the Vietnam War.

There is a statue of President George Washington facing Fayetteville Street, as well as the three presidents who are from North Carolina. There are no named women on the Capitol grounds, only a woman holding a palm frond atop the largest war memorial.

There are no details yet about the exact location of either of the new monuments, nor a timeline for their placement. The southeastern corner of the grounds has been the slated location for the long-stalled African Americans monument. The area where a tall column and three Confederate soldier statues partially blocked the view of the Capitol on Hillsborough Street is vacant, as is the former street-side location of a seated Confederate woman and child. There are several paths and large areas of green space for new monuments on the grounds.

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