UNC – Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt said in a message to the campus community on Friday that the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam “has a place in our history and on our campus” but “not at the front door of a safe, welcoming, proudly public research university.”
Folt and the campus Board of Trustees have been directed by the UNC System Board of Governors to “develop and present to the Board of Governors a plan for the monument’s disposition and preservation, which should be presented to the Board of Governors by November 15, 2018.”
The chancellor wrote that this decision, “for the first time,” gives the trustees and Folt “a clear path to identify a safe, legal and alternative location for Silent Sam.”
Folt said the university was entering a process to determine its options moving forward, and she was confident that campus officials would have a proposal ready to go before the Board of Governors before the mid-November deadline. But the chancellor did not have many details available in a conference call with reporters on Friday on how exactly that process will be carried out or any alternative options for the statue’s placement.
“We want to provide opportunities for our students and the broader community to reflect upon and learn from that history,” Folt wrote Friday. “Wide consultation, and lots of listening on campus and beyond, are necessary if we are to move toward peace and healing. The plan they have asked us to prepare will be ready for presentation to President Spellings and the Board of Governors in November as they specified. We will be sharing details on a planning process with you as soon as we possibly can.”
Folt said it was important to take the historical context into thinking of the future of the monument, including racist language used at the statue’s dedication in 1913.
“Our University repudiates those words and the system of oppression they represent,” Folt wrote in her message to the campus on Friday. “In forum after forum, the stories told by so many reveal the pain and hurt that come from that speech, and from the presence, at the front door of the University they love, of the monument they associate with it.”
Silent Sam has been a flashpoint of protests for decades. The monument was toppled during a protest on August 20. Two subsequent protests in the last 10 days have brought opposing groups to McCorkle Place, where the statue’s pedestal remains.
You can read Folt’s full message here.
How about a statue of Dean Smith arm in arm with Charlie Scott ‘70
Temple Grassi’ 69
I’m interested in a place to relocate Carol Folt.