High school takes down Lincoln-Jefferson Davis artwork 'to avoid potentially offending anyone

There had been no complaints about the piece of art. Not a one.

But a North Carolina high school nevertheless decided to take down student-created art depicting former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln with Confederate President Jefferson Davis "to avoid potentially offending anyone," the school's principal told the Daily Advance.

“In light of the recent controversy in Charlottesville [Virginia] and throughout the country, we have recently removed the painting from the wall outside the media center,” Camden County High School Principal Billie Berry told the paper.

Taking down — and vandalizing — statues and monuments commemorating the Confederacy and its principal figures has trended nationwide ever since the violent protests in Charlottesville last month over a Robert E. Lee statue there.

The big difference at Camden County High is that no one has complained about the artwork, which was created several years ago as a joint project with the school's students and those from a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, high school, Berry told the Daily Advance.

“While we have received no concerns or complaints about the artwork, we felt that it was best to be proactive and remove the painting to avoid potentially offending anyone,” he told the paper.

Berry also told the Daily Advance that the artwork “was in no way designed to promote the Confederacy” and was “simply a historical representation of the president of the United States and the Confederacy during the Civil War" and to reflect the academic subject of history.

The piece of art was created by using 2-inch squares — half painted by Camden students and the other half created digitally by the Pittsburgh students, the paper said.

“The students communicated daily with one another using Skype while working on the project,” Berry told the Daily Advance. “Upon completion, our students mailed half of the painted squares to Pittsburgh and the students in Pittsburgh mailed half of the digital squares to Camden. Each school then pieced together the squares and the art work was displayed in both schools.”

Duck and cover

Things devolved after Charlottesville to the point where social justice warriors were sniffing out Confederacy infractions in the strangest of places (read: New York City subway tiles and Confederate soldier re-enactors at a parade).

And now you might see more officials like Berry proactively saving people from potential offense by ridding any reminders of the Confederacy wherever they can find them as well.

Of course, there's no telling what backlash the school now may face — particularly from the students who helped create the piece of art, as well as their parents.