SALISBURY — With an eye toward maintaining awareness of the history of Salisbury and Rowan County, the Fame Preservation Group has worked for years to build awareness and knowledge of Salisbury’s past, which includes Confederate history.

As part of those efforts, the group is hosting the first of what it hopes will be be an annual Fame Fest in and around the Old Lutheran Cemetery on May 24.

The event will run from noon until 4 p.m. and there is a planned schedule of events as well as food and drink. Entry is $10, but is free for anyone 15 and under.

According to Greg Lambeth, president and organizer of the group and the event, the goal of Fame Preservation is sometimes misunderstood.

“People ask about what we do to preserve the Fame statue, and I have to explain to them that what we are working to preserve is the overall history that Fame is a part of,” he said. “Just in Rowan County there is such tremendous history, for instance with the prison and the hospital that were here (during the Civil War). It’s Confederate history but it’s more than that, it’s southern history, and it’s important that we recognize and hold on to that.”

The group has hosted an annual barbecue fundraiser for the last three years, but this will be the first Fame Fest, and Lambeth said it’s just one more community connection the group is working to build.

Members already sign up annually to participate each month in the city’s Street Cleanup project, and they do provide maintenance for the Fame statue, which is now located in the Old Lutheran Cemetery. They also advocate for other issues, such as the one that just came to fruition.

“We were working with Chris Tester of the public works department in Salisbury to see if we could get pet waste disposal bag dispensers put in the cemetery, since a lot of people will walk their dogs there,” he said. That is now happening.

They have worked to provide cleaning and repairs for a number of headstones, and even had several replaced, along with cleaning the sign of the Old English cemetery historical marker.

And Lambeth said they all believe that Fame’s current location in the Old Lutheran cemetery “is more than perfect. It’s now among more than 200 grave sites of Confederate soldiers, and the statue represents just that, the common soldier who didn’t come home.”

Fame, along with numerous other Confederate statues across the South, have been the targets of other organizations and residents who have believed the statues send an unwanted message to minorities in a community, but Lambeth said he believes it has been more the location of the statues than the statues themselves, especially those that represent not generals or political leaders, but just an everyman. And he believes there are some who also misunderstand the goal of his group.

“We’re trying to right the wrongs of past generation,” he said. “We’re not the KKK 0r white supremacists. We don’t want to be characterized as people we are not. Confederate symbols represent families that didn’t get to see family members come back from war. And they are part of our history, but our history is far more than just slavery or the war. The South has a tremendous history that is worthy of honor. I don’t agree with trying to send a message to any group that they are not welcome, and understand the desire to move the statues to more appropriate places. But I also understand learning about our own history fully, and I believe in honoring those soldiers who gave it all. I also believe in honoring the mothers, the women, the children who stayed behind and fought to survive during the war.”

He mentioned the Bread Riot of Salisbury, in which military blockades and speculation were driving up food prices. The women of Salisbury rose up in protest, raiding stores of supplies and demanding lower prices. That riot was one of many across the South at the time, but it was successful in obtaining lower prices, and the event highlighted the hardships faced by families during the war. It also led to better rationing of government resources. And it’s one part of the town’s history that members of the Fame group believe need to be kept alive.

Fame Preservation Group started in 2019 but was incorporated as an official organization in 2021, and Lambeth said members continue to work to become good community participants.

On Saturday, the schedule of events includes an opening ceremony at noon, followed by guest speakers Creighton Lovelace, Sam Winkler and Kelly Atkins. D. Stroud Photography will offer photos to visitors midafternoon, followed by a historical tour of the cemetery where visitors can learn who is buried there, and why they are important historically. It will also include a brief overview of the Fame statue, how it came to be, its brief time in Paris, France, how it came to the U.S. and why it matters to Salisbury.

At 3 p.m. there will be be a memorial service complete with color guard and the firing of two Napoleon cannons. In addition, there will be a number of vendors present, including Pop and Kellie’s Grill, Boho Goddess of Kannapolis, Rowan Rifles SCV Camp 405, Veterans Creed Outdoors, Southern Independence Association, Dangerfield Investigations and Consulting, D. Stroud Photography, The Virginia Flaggers, The Tarheel Flaggers, the Panther Creek Iron Works and the 28th North Carolina State Troops, and a number of these will have living history demonstrations on site.

Parking is available at the end of Franklin Street and there will be volunteers to direct guests where to go.

“I hope we have a good turnout, though I know it’s the first year,” said Lambeth. “And some have confused it with our annual barbecue, but this is really an attempt to honor our local history, and I do hope we will have people come to are curious, who want to ask questions and who want to learn.”