A controversial Confederate statue on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was torn down by protesters.
More than 300 demonstrators marched to the base of the Silent Sam statue during the rally, which kicked off at 7pm on Monday night.
About two hours into the protest, a group surrounded the statue – which has long been decried as a symbol of black oppression and racism – and pulled it down. Once it was on the ground, demonstrators kicked it and cheered.
The crowd chanted ‘Tar Heels!’ and ‘Whose Campus? Our Campus!’ Cars honked as they passed nearby on the college town’s main drag.
A controversial Confederate statue on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was torn down by protesters on Monday night
The century-old statue was left face down on the ground after the protest on Monday. A blood stain on the plinth hints that the monument may not have come down without a fight
At least one protester was arrested and charged with concealing their face during a public rally and resisting arrest.
School officials condemned the protesters’ actions as ‘dangerous’ and have launched a vandalism investigation.
Many students, faculty and alumni had called the statue a racist image and asked officials to remove it, though some argued it was a tribute to fallen ancestors.
UNC leaders including Chancellor Carol Folt had previously said state law prevented the school from removing the statue.
Word that the statue had fallen drew curious students out.
‘I heard the statue had come down, so I had to see it myself,’ said freshman Manuel Ricardo, who arrived after the statue was on the ground.
The site of the empty pedestal ‘is pretty breathtaking,’ said Ricardo, who’s African American. ‘I think most people here are happy. I’m ecstatic.’
Shortly after 10 p.m., a dozen officers were surrounding the fallen statue, which was eventually covered with a tarp next to its empty pedestal.
Silent Sam, pictured before the protest in August 2017, is so called because the statue does not include a cartridge box on the Confederate soldier’s belt, meaning he cannot fire his gun. On the base of the statue is a young student dropping his books and a woman, representing the state of North Carolina
Banners had been used to cover up the statue – considered a symbol of oppression and racism – before the protest
Students and protesters surround plinth where the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam once stood, on the University of North Carolina campus
Junior Ian Goodson said he came out after he heard the statue fell because he wanted to see history.
‘It’s a significant event for UNC,’ he said.
He said that while he doesn’t agree with what the Confederacy stood for, he understands that some saw the statue as an important memorial.
Asked whether he’s glad the statue came down, he said: ‘I was always kind of torn.’
North Carolina, which ranks among the handful of Southern states with the most Confederate monuments, has been a focal point in the national debate over them following a deadly white nationalist protest a year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Protests over the UNC statue erected in 1913 have flared in the past year, and another Confederate monument in nearby Durham was torn down shortly after the Virginia protest.
Police try to take a banner from protesters as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus
Police remove a protester during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina
Police and protesters react to a smoke bomb during a rally to remove the confederate statue
Gov. Roy Cooper had called for removing Silent Sam and other rebel symbols on public land. A state historic panel is set to meet this week to debate Cooper’s request to remove other Confederate monuments at the state Capitol.
Still the Democratic governor issued a statement on Twitter Monday night arguing the protesters took the wrong approach to removing the statue.
‘The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities,’ said the tweet from his official account.
The university echoed the sentiment in a statement issued after the statue came down.
‘Tonight’s actions were dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured. We are investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage,’ the university said in a tweet.
THE CONTROVERSIAL STATUE WHICH HAS IGNITED PROTESTS SINCE THE 1960S
Silent Sam was erected in 1913 on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to commemorate the Confederate alumni who died in the Civil War.
The statue, by sculptor John A. Wilson, was funded by the University Alumni and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to remember the 50 year anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.
He is called ‘Silent Sam’ because the statue does not include a cartridge box on the Confederate soldier’s belt, meaning he cannot fire his gun.
Silent Sam was erected in 1913 on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina
On the base of the statue is a young student dropping his books as he looks up to answer a call to duty. The boy represents the 40 per cent of the university body who were called up to fight in the war.
Next to him a woman, representing the state of North Carolina, is depicted calling students to fight for the South.
Its 1913 dedication was shocking racist after Confederate soldier Julian Carr boasted about attacking a black woman, in front of 100 fellow soldiers, and praised the Ku Klux Klan’s deadly attacks on black people in the four years after the war to try and assert white dominance in the South.
‘The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war…their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South,’ he added in a not so subtle reference to the racist attacks.
He added to the crowd that ‘one hundred yards from where we stand… 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.’
The statue, which some view as honoring the Confederate dead but many view as a symbol of oppression of people of color, has long been a lightning rod for political protest.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, the monument was vandalized and the 1960s also saw it become the site of a number of protests.
That continued into the 1970s when the Black Student Movement held several protests by the statue.
Following the violent Charlottesville protests, which began over proposals to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee, a crowd of a hundred gathered around Silent Sam in August 2017 to call for its removal.
It was finally torn down on August 20, 2018.