Some protesters who have spent the last few months rallying against Silent Sam took action into their own hands on Tuesday placing two new historical markers on and near the campus.
Marker honoring James Cates. Photo via Blake Hodge.
The group rallied in the Pit on UNC’s campus Tuesday afternoon and placed a cement base and plaque honoring James Cates. Cates was killed on the campus in November 1970 by a white supremacist motorcycle gang. Records show three men were charged in his murder but were all acquitted by an all-white jury.
The group placed that marker ahead of the honor court appeal hearing for Maya Little. The history graduate student at UNC has been at the center of the protest of the Confederate monument on the Chapel Hill campus known as Silent Sam. She was criminally charged after pouring a mixture of red ink and her own blood on the statue in the spring of 2018.
The statue was then toppled in August and the base of the monument was removed in mid-January.
Little’s criminal trial resulted in a finding of guilt on the misdemeanor charge, but judgment was continued and fees were waived, meaning no additional punishment accompanied the finding. The UNC Honor Court meanwhile carried out a hearing charging Little with breaking compliance with the university’s honor code.
Little’s representative for Tuesday’s appeal spoke before the hearing and criticized one of the members of the original hearing panel, who she said was biased.
“Maya had a member on her honor court panel who has publicly supported Silent Sam for years.” She pointed to social media posts from the individual, Frank Pray, that were deleted during the original hearing after coming to light.
Little said the process around the hearings and criminal trials has taken a toll on her well-being.
Memorial to Negro Wench on Franklin Street. Photo via Blake Hodge.
“But every day black people at UNC, especially women and queers, have to choose between their employment at this university or their safety,” Little said, “housing, the buildings they have to study in, the degree the university grants or their dignity.”
Little has been trespassed from portions of the campus, including McCorkle Place, where Silent Sam had stood for more than 100 years.
The group walked to McCorkle Place after the pre-hearing rally, with Little remaining behind. They stopped in front of the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway marker on Franklin Street, which itself has been a point of protest in recent months, to place another memorial.
This marker was dedicated to the “Negro Wench” who Julian Carr referenced in his speech at the dedication for Silent Sam. Carr told the crowd in 1913 that he had whipped the woman until her skirt hung in shreds.
Where James Cates memorial stood on UNC campus. Photo via Blake Hodge.
“We install these monuments as an act of transfiguration,” one speaker said. “It is not too late to do what those before us would not or could not do. It is not too late for our moral awakening and a true reckoning of the past.
“The future we want will not come about unless we fight for it.”
The group said it was their belief on Tuesday that now that the markers were placed on public grounds, they could not be removed due to a 2015 law limiting the movement of objects of remembrance. The 2015 law first applies to “a monument, memorial, or work of art owned by the State” where approval is required from the North Carolina Historical Commission for removal. The second section of the law more broadly defines the term object of remembrance. UNC School of Government associate professor Adam Lovelady wrote an article detailing differences in the language.
The marker honoring James Cates was no longer standing in the Pit on Wednesday morning. The memorial to the Negro Wench remained in place as of 8:45 a.m. Wednesday.
UNC’s Honor Court panel had not reached a conclusion on Little’s appeal by nine o’clock Tuesday night, when the ruling was scheduled to be handed down.
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