Two people accused of vandalizing a memorial to enslaved and free black workers who built UNC-Chapel Hill have been ordered to pay fine and perform community service.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reports 31-year-old Ryan Francis Barnett of Sanford and 50-year-old Nancy Rushton McCorkle of Newberry, South Carolina, were found guilty of injury to real property and larceny, both misdemeanors.
An Orange County judge sentenced Barnett and McCorkle to 200 hours of community service, 18 months of unsupervised probation and a $500 fine.
The two were accused of marking the Unsung Founders Memorial in March with what the school’s interim chancellor said was “racist language.”
The memorial is in a central plaza that also featured a statue of a Confederate soldier before protesters tore it down in August.
Did they ever charge single person for tearing down Silent Sam? No they did not. Did they ever hold UNC Admin accountable for their negligence? No.
UNC claimed they were ok with tearing down Silent Sam b/c “it proposed a threat to public safety.” Well it’s appears that the Black Memorial ALSO poses a threat. If UNC does not remove the Black Memorial they are hypocrites and do not practice equal justice under the law.
Time to get rid of UNC RACIST moniker “TAR HEEL”
The TAR HEEL name use to be a pejorative until Robert E. Lee used it to describe Confederate North Carolinians that stood their ground “as if they had tar on their heels” during the Civil War. Those are the very SAME North Carolinians that were honored with the Silent Sam Veterans Memorial that was torn down — the very same men. We then claimed the monicker as a sense of pride and this became the reason UNC chose it’s nickname.
Now you an try to explain this away like Carrboro tires to with it’s town that is named after the very man that made the statements that lead to Silent Sam being ripped down. They claim that the town has since redefine the name in a positive way. You can say UNC did the same with the name Tar Heel. Well then, has the actually text on the Silent Sam Veterans Memorial that speaks of “honor, duty and sacrifice” for the last 100 years done the same? Surely a bronze plague that’s been there for over 100 years denoting a positive message has done the same.
UNC has a reckoning coming and it’s going to get uglier than it’s already been.