SALISBURY — After a group called Salisbury Indivisible sent a letter to the City Council late last week asking the city to remove the Confederate monument at Church and West Innes Streets, many people had questions.

Who — or what — is Salisbury Indivisible?

“We don’t consider ourselves a political organization. We don’t support any party,” said Salisbury Indivisible member Jeff Sharp. “Our goal is really to bring concerns of people to the attention of elected officials and to our co-citizens and co-residents.”

Sharp, an electronics and software engineer who lives in Salisbury, said he has been a member of the organization — which he said is better characterized as a “movement” — for the past three or four months.

It was organized about a year ago and has almost 400 members who live in or near Salisbury.

The Salisbury Indivisible chapter is part of a larger movement called the Indivisible Project that was created last year to “resist” President Donald Trump’s agenda, according to the Indivisible Project website.

The Indivisible Project is a registered nonprofit organization and is a project of the Advocacy Fund.

“Our mission is to cultivate and lift up a grassroots movement of local groups to defeat the Trump agenda, elect progressive leaders and realize bold progressive policies,” says the Indivisible Project website.

Although the national organization is heavily oriented toward advocating against Trump’s policies, Sharp said he does not see the Salisbury chapter as a “progressive” organization.

“I think that we are probably all moving in the direction of progressive causes, but you know — and I can only speak of the way that I feel about things — I feel like in the public discourse, the terms ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative,’ ‘right’ and ‘left’ have been used in a very specific way,” Sharp said. “Where people hear ‘liberal’ and automatically think ‘bad’ and hear ‘conservative’ and automatically think ‘good.'”

Sharp made clear that he could speak only for himself because he said Salisbury Indivisible is less an organized group than one of “individuals … keeping each other informed about what’s going on.”

He said the chapter keeps its eyes on national, state and local issues.

With regard to the letter that Salisbury Indivisible sent to the City Council, Sharp said he was unaware of any specific reason the letter was sent last week, more than a month after protests over removing a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent and catalyzed a national discussion.

He said he does not know where the statue should be moved.

In the letter it sent to the City Council, Salisbury Indivisible said that the statue should be in a museum or a cemetery, but did not specify a specific location.

“It just seems inappropriate in 2017 to have this 23-foot monument to the Confederacy at the central crossroad in town. It just doesn’t seem to be a forward-looking thing,” Sharp said. “And it seems that it is something that causes some unease to some people in the community.”

The author of the letter is not yet known.

Mayor Pro Tem Maggie Blackwell, who responded to the chapter’s letter Friday by email, said in a separate interview that she does not feel the letter was anonymous, even though no specific person’s name was assigned to it.

“We have gotten truly anonymous emails, when someone set up a false email address,” Blackwell said. “This one was from a personal email account. It cited how many members they have. And I know many of the members personally.”

Blackwell, who is not running for re-election, said in her emailed response to Salisbury Indivisible that she is “certain” that nothing will happen on the issue in the remaining two months of her term.

“I do, however, wish you well in your efforts,” Blackwell said in her email.

Sharp said he is not aware of any follow-up action the chapter is planning if the council does not pursue the monument issue.

“It was a request, and I thought it was pretty reasonable,” Sharp said. “There’s no ‘or else’ that goes with that.”

Contact reporter Jessica Coates at 704-797-4222.