why was silent sam taken down
He tells me that, while Julian Carr's racist speech is well known at this point, "less well known is what the United Daughters of the Confederacy were doing in 1913." Twitter. Again in 1973 and in 1990, students wrote letters to the Daily Tar Heel to discuss the meaning of Silent Sam. In a statement issued Tuesday, UNC's Chancellor Carol Folt, UNC System President Margaret Spellings, and other leaders said that "we do not support lawlessness, and we will use the full breadth of the state and and University processes to hold those responsible accountable for their actions.". "This has been a long time coming," Standish says, "and it took all of these years of protest to build the energy and power to do this. But what an honor to be known as the people who moved that which should not be moved—the ministers who gathered together as Silent Sam goes down and … (David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/TNS via Getty Images), North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017. Silent Sam is a Jim Crow-era monument erected during a time when people of color could not attend UNC. The statue, erected on the Chapel Hill campus in 1913, was torn off its base in August by students protesting its symbolism as a shrine for white supremacy. I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. Why now: It should have come down when Jim Crow ended. The 'Silent Sam' statue, a memorial to Confederate soldiers, on the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus was covered in black cloth as … I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterward slept with a double-barrel shotgun under my head. One hundred yards from where we stand [on Franklin Street], less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted an maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. UNC Chancellor Resigns After Ordering Confederate ‘Silent Sam’ Monument Removed. ", Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on... [+] campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. No one learns at their best when they feel unsafe.”. “We are incredibly disappointed at this intentional action. The remains of the Confederate statue known as “Silent Sam” were removed from the University of North Carolina campus early Tuesday, hours after the school chancellor announced her resignation and said she had ordered the monument taken away. The state university system’s Board of Governors responded by telling Folt to leave by the end of January. All rights reserved. ", Protesters gather at a Confederate monument known as "Silent Sam" on campus at the University of... [+] North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. They're not just random pieces of furniture. Silent Sam, after all, was meant to pay tribute to those who wanted to maintain slavery. Folt’s decision to remove Silent Sam’s pedestal as she announced her resignation in January won plaudits from some on campus, but she may have worsened the challenges her successor … Silent Sam, like other memorials to the Confederacy, is a monument to a treasonous rebellion against the United States, fought to preserve the enslavement of African Americans. When 'the bottom rail was on top' all over the Southern states, and today, as a consequence, the purest strain of the Angl0-Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States -- Praise God. Silent Sam honors Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. The other thing that's false about this claim that we're trying to erase history is that the statue itself served to erase history. Chancellor Carol L. Folt on Monday said she would step down at the end of the academic year and announced she had ordered the removal of the statue’s base and commemorative plaques because of safety concerns. Protesters last Monday toppled the Silent Sam Confederate monument on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, after years of controversy and vandalism surrounding the … (AP Photo/Gerry Broome). "That's not just bad logic," O'Hara notes, "it's based on a false premise. Removing a toxic symbol from our campus, however, will free the University of North Carolina to fulfill its promise to facilitate research, knowledge, ideas, and frameworks that do address these problems. RELATED: Black History Plaque Taken … The Daughters of the Confederacy monument was lifted and removed on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017, from its... [+] site at 55th & Ward Parkway, taken to a storage location by request of the group to the Kansas City, Missouri Parks Department. Nearly 50 years after the end of the Civil War, dozens of Confederate statues were erected around the U.S., but particularly in the South. Silent Sam was not removed then, but was defaced following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 8, 1968. I urge the Daily Tar Heel and the Carolina student body to take up the case of removing from the campus that shameful commemoration of a disgraceful episode. ... Why German spies blew up this US island - Duration: 7:27. Standish concurs, further noting that "these woman had racial and class privilege that allowed them - through the Silent Sam statue - to shape how all people enter and experience UNC's campus.". Late Monday evening, protestors on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pulled down a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed 'Silent Sam.' “As chancellor, the safety of the UNC-Chapel Hill community is my clear, unequivocal and non-negotiable responsibility,” Folt wrote in a letter to students. ©2021 Verizon Media. It was commissioned for the more than 1,000 UNC students who left their studies to fight on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War, on the 50th anniversary of the Civil War's beginning. In the aftermath of Charlottesville, however, Gov. Specifically, in the same year that Silent Sam was dedicated, the UDC "unanimously endorsed and promoted for use in schools a history of the KKK that praised the heroic work they did to preserve white supremacy. But this political, post-Trump-election moment has also generated an urgency to confront symbols and systems of white supremacy. The statue, named “Silent Sam,” had loomed over campus for more than a century. “While I recognize that some may not agree with my decision to remove the base and tablets now, I am confident this is the right one for our community – one that will promote public safety, enable us to begin the healing process and renew our focus on our great mission,” Folt said. ", In a statement by the Center for the Study of the American South, UNC history professor Malinda Lowery wrote Monday, prior to the statue's toppling, that "removing the statue will not, by itself, erase attitudes of white supremacy, eliminate racial violence in our society, provide equal protection to immigrants who enter lawfully, or redress the other injustices that are standing in the way of our nation’s progress. But monuments are erected to propagandize ideas. In November of 1971, a protest was held by the UNC Black Student Movement at Silent Sam after two young black men were killed by whites. They should. But … [...] In view of this situation which so lately prevailed in other areas of the country, the existence on the UNC campus of a monument to men who were militant white supremacists and extremists of the worst kind is no less an affront to the Negro peoples and the intelligentsia than is the gaudy Confederate flag flying from the lily-white dome of Alabama's capitol. One of the earliest written records of this, according to UNC's archives, was on March 17, 1965 at the height of the Civil Rights era during the Selma-to-Montgomery marches in Alabama. It's really important to recognize that statues and monuments are created by those who have the political and financial power to do so, in order to shape people's understanding of their lived environment, to signal power relations, and to claim spaces for these powerful groups. In the Facebook post ACTBAC, or Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County said they took the "black history monument' because Silent Sam was taken down. Removing a toxic symbol from our campus, however, will free the University of North Carolina to fulfill its promise to facilitate research, knowledge, ideas, and frameworks that, address these problems. Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter. Chancellor Carol L. Folt on Monday said she would step down at the end of the academic year and announced she had ordered the removal of the statue’s base and commemorative plaques because of safety concerns. In 1913, Silent Sam was erected on commencement day. (David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/TNS via Getty Images), UNC Classics Professor Jim O'Hara has also been active in understanding the history of Silent Sam and in petitioning the University administration to remove the statue. Vox Recommended for you. This law was passed specifically because of calls for removal of Silent Sam that intensified in 2015. ", After Silent Sam was removed on Monday, numerous people have commented on news stories and Facebook and Twitter posts that taking down Confederate monuments eliminates our ability to learn from history. These new narratives ignored slavery as the cause of the war, and contributed instead to the "Jim Crow regime, which was responsible for the disenfranchisement and murder of black Southerners," she explains. Disclosure: I received my MA and PhD from UNC Chapel Hill and am currently a teaching assistant professor of anthropology at UNC. Standish, however, points out that Silent Sam "actively distorts it and teaches people an incorrect version of history. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. So putting up these statues was unambiguously part of the white supremacist movement of the Jim Crow era." ", Those who want Confederate monuments like Silent Sam to come down do not, as some commenters have suggested, want history or the memory of the Civil War to be wiped out. Roy Cooper (D) also expressed support for Folt’s actions, stating on Twitter: “North Carolina is welcoming to all, and our public university should reflect that.”. Confederate statues were erected around the U.S. statement by the Center for the Study of the American South. Protesters Monday night toppled Silent Sam, the Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although discussions about removing this and other Civil War era monuments have reached a boiling point in the last year, heated debate about Silent Sam's presence has occurred since the 1960s because of its racist history. Case Study: ‘Silent Sam’. What Is The Most Common Type Of Planet In The Universe? Protests outside the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 2017 over Confederate monuments led to a woman’s death in clashes between white supremacists and demonstrators. Students and protesters take to McCorkle Place on UNC’s campus and tear down the Silent Sam statue from its pedestal. "Silent Sam" had stood on a main campus quad from 1913 until it was torn down by protesters who decried what they described as its racist origins. The university itself did not fund the statue, but then-president Francis Venable solicited donations from alumni. Silent Sam is reminiscent of a bygone era and deeply offensive to many people of color. Silent Sam was not the first Confederate monument to come down in North Carolina. The Chapel Hill school’s Board of Trustees, in contrast, expressed support for Folt’s decision to remove what remained of the monument, and said she was “acting properly to preserve campus security.”, Gov. [...] The removal of Silent Sam has placed our University at the center of a long overdue conversation about justice and reconciliation. Video taken at UNC around 1 a.m. Tuesday showed people singing and cheering as construction workers carefully removed the remains of Silent Sam. We made it easy for you to exercise your right to vote! Current NC governor Roy Cooper said in 2017 that UNC system officials could remove the statue, particularly if they thought there was a public safety risk, but the University administrators felt they could not legally do it. In a letter to the Daily Tar Heel, the university's student newspaper, Horne suggests Silent Sam should be toppled just like the statue of Saddam Hussein. "No one learns at their best when they feel unsafe," Chancellor Carol L. Folt said in announcing her decision. At the unveiling, Confederate veteran and UNC trustee Julian Carr gave a speech praising the Confederate army. Part of HuffPost News. In a letter to the editor of the Daily Tar Heel, UNC's campus newspaper, student Al Ribak wrote: The primary purpose of the 'memorial' was to associate a fictitious 'honor' with the darkest blot on American history -- the fight of southern racists to keep the Negro peoples in a position of debased subservience. Following that, a Confederate statue in nearby Durham, NC, was pulled down from in front of the county courthouse. But many say that the law was so narrowly written that the Historical Commission has no authority to allow removal, even when a majority of people want it. It lacks transparency and it undermines and insults the Board’s goal to operate with class and dignity,” Smith said in a statement on Monday. Loading... Unsubscribe from David Pino? Silent Sam Taken Down! August 21, 2018. Horne told The Chronicle yesterday that "We were always told you can't topple statues because it's akin to toppling history. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome), emoving the statue will not, by itself, erase attitudes of white supremacy, eliminate racial violence in our society, provide equal protection to immigrants who enter lawfully, or redress the other injustices that are standing in the way of our nation’s progress. ", campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. NASA Spacecraft At Mars And The International Space Station Detected ‘Giant Cosmic Flare’ From ‘Silver Dollar Galaxy’, Oldest, Farthest, Brightest: Astronomers Discover Cosmic Heavyweight, Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day Comes As Several Asteroids Whip By, Like Normal, Dinosaur Fossil From Argentina Could Belong To Largest Terrestrial Animal Known To Science. Taking Silent Sam down opens the door for reconciliation and will allow UNC to declare itself a true home for all. "We are providing legal notice of an additional reason why Silent Sam must come down now: the statue violates federal anti-discrimination laws by fostering a racially hostile learning environment." On Aug. 20, Silent Sam was finally pulled down, toppled by a coalition of North Carolina students and protestors who decided the statue had been perched on campus for far too long. Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. With the backing of the state, Silent Sam has stood proudly and defiantly at UNC Chapel Hill since 1913 . The law was drafted in response to the Silent Sam statue that still stands tall on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus, as some folks wanted (and still want to) tear the fucker down. If their presence offends our sensibilities, good. And of course the Silent Sam statue erased the memory of the enslaved people that those young men were fighting to keep enslaved, who are nowhere mentioned on it. The statue has been in storage since it was toppled last August by protesters who said it was a racist symbol. To vote a long overdue conversation about justice and reconciliation `` the front door '' the... Next chapter the backing of the American South Crow ended UNC Chancellor Resigns after Ordering ‘. Based on a pedestal at the university of North Carolina ( UNC ), it was a racist symbol has... % of its history a Confederate statue in nearby Durham, NC, was pulled down from in of! 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