Maryland advocates are suing Talbot County for the “racist and illegal placement” of a monument that memorializes the county’s Confederate soldiers.

The “Talbot Boys” statue appears to be the last Confederate monument on public grounds in the state. Kisha Petticolas, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, says she has to walk past it on her way into the county courthouse to do her job everyday as Talbot County’s assistant public defender.

“Not only do I have to endure that pain everyday, my clients who are walking into the courthouse hoping to be given a fair shot at justice are walking onto a courthouse lawn that still celebrates the Confederacy and all that that means,” Petticolas, who is Black, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday.

The lawsuit was filed in District Court in Baltimore by the county’s NAACP chapter the office of the public defender, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. It alleges nine counts of discrimination and racism against the plaintiffs and county residents, including denying equal protection under the law, right to a fair trial, and violating good government laws. “That any government in the United States would continue to maintain the symbolism of white supremacy and promote a legacy of racial subjugation should shock the conscience,” the lawsuit says.

Similar ACLU lawsuits have been successful. In December, a Fairfax County judge ruled that pictures of white judges in a courtroom come off as biased against defendants of color.

“Here we’re faced with the exact same consequences with the statue here being right in front of the county courthouse, steps away from the door where our Black citizens have to walk through to conduct their business in the courthouse…or with the county council,” said Kelly Hibbert, a lawyer with the law firm Crowell & Moring LLP assisting with the lawsuit.

This isn’t the first call for the removal of the statue, which was erected in 1916. The local NAACP chapter and the Move the Monument Coalition have been pleading with the county council to remove the statue since 2015, after the shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, SC. A second request was made in 2017, following the far-right rally in Charlottesville, VA which left one counter-protestor dead. And a third request was made following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.

The most recent requested was denied by a 3-2 vote in August.

Councilmember Pete Lesher, vice president and one of two Democrats on the Talbot County Council, told DCist/WAMU that he hopes to settle the matter with a council vote rather than in court.

“It’s preferable for a decision that be made legislatively than to a decision that is handed down judicially,” said Lesher, who voted to remove the statue last year.

Outvoted, Lesher told his colleague at the time that, “our actions…I’m afraid sadly speak of who we are now as a county and the extent to which we have not yet changed.”

Council president Chuck Callahan voted to keep it, saying he would prefer to let voters decide in a referendum on the ballot during the 2022 election, according to Delmarva Now.

“We’re changing the way we’re looking at history, and I think we better really take a couple steps back and make sure we’re doing the right thing. And at this time, I don’t think we’re doing the right thing,” Callahan said. He did not respond for DCist’s request to comment.

Advocates, however, are “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” said Richard Potter, president of the county’s NAACP and party to the lawsuit. “The time for removing the Confederate monument is now.”