Silent Sam Coverage
All assets associated with the tag: Silent Sam
The Silent Sam statue on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was dedicated in 1913 in memory of students and faculty who fought and died for the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War
It became a racial flashpoint because of comments made by UNC donor Julian Carr, who said while dedicating the statue, "One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds because she had maligned and insulted a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison."
Protests and vandalism periodically pitted those in favor of the statue as a monument to Southern heritage against those who saw it as a tribute to a cultural history of slavery, oppression and racism.
In August 2018, a group of protesters toppled the statue, forcing the university to reconsider what to do with it.
In November 2019, the UNC Board of Governors reached a settlement with the Sons of Confederate Veterans to turn the monument over to the group and provide $2.5 million for a facility to preserve it, provided it isn't in a county where one of the UNC system's 17 campuses are located.
