RALEIGH (AP) — The former head of North Carolina’s largest teachers lobbying group wants to end a moratorium on new statues and monuments at the state Capitol so the antebellum building can reflect the contributions of American Indians and blacks to the state’s heritage.

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Eddie Davis, the former president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, calls the shortage of minorities in and around the 1840 edifice “segregated history in the 21st century,” The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Monday.

The Capitol grounds include a statue of former Gov. Charles Brantley Aycock, a leading spokesman for the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900 that were marked by violence and voter intimidation, and President Andrew Jackson, who oversaw the forced removal of Cherokee Indians from their homelands in the 1830s, resulting in thousands of deaths.

The dozens of statues, busts and plaques inside and outside the antebellum Capitol also salute the state’s three signers of the Declaration of Independence, former governors, and women behind a 1774 tea party in Edenton.

Only the Vietnam veterans memorial includes a Lumbee Indian and a black soldier among the three troops portrayed.

At a meeting of the state Historical Commission last week, Davis suggested the addition of a series of plaques to the second floor of the Capitol recognizing historical contributions by racial and ethnic minorities who make up more than a quarter of North Carolina’s population.

“We should look for cooperative and jubilant ways to respect the composite history of our state,” Davis said.

A historical commission committee will study Davis’ suggestion for a “Hall of Inclusion,” as well as other possibilities for recognizing minorities, to break the moratorium in place since the 1980s.

The pressure for who history should honor is omnipresent. Historical Commission chairman Jerry Cashion said he has fielded inquiries about erecting statues to evangelist Billy Graham, who is still alive, and former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who died last year. The law requires an individual to be dead for 25 years before he can be honored with a statue, Cashion said.

The push to expand the monuments is likely to build as American society grows more diverse, said Bill Ferris, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill history professor and former director of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“We’re changing as a society, and down the road there will be monuments to Hispanic leaders,” Ferris said.