Local lawmakers filed companion bills in the North Carolina House and Senate last week, which would force UNC – Chapel Hill to move the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam from its current location on McCorkle Place.
The bills say that lawmakers find “it is necessary to permanently relocate the monument” from McCorkle Place into “a secure, indoor location.”
UNC Chancellor Carol Folt told reporters at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting that the university was not involved in the drafting of the legislation.
“We’ve been talking to people all along, in many different forms,” the chancellor said, “but we weren’t part of drafting the bill.”
Folt said that she is thankful the conversation is going on at the General Assembly.
“I really appreciate the people that are really working on this,” Folt said. “I think it’s really important. I’ve said I think there’s a big safety issue, and I appreciate that.
“We’re willing to work with anybody to help resolve those safety issues, and we also follow the law. We’re appreciative of everybody who is trying to make progress.”
Folt has said repeatedly that she would order the statue be moved, if she felt she had the authority to do so. But the chancellor has maintained she is limited by a 2015 law passed by the Republican-led General Assembly that prevents the movement of “objects of remembrance.”
The monument – which was erected in 1913, according to the university – has been a flashpoint of protest over the years. Protests calling for the statue’s removal were consistent over the recently concluded academic year after a rally on August 22, marking the first day of the fall semester. In late April, a UNC graduate student was arrested for pouring a mixture of what she said was her own blood and red paint on the statute.
The newly filed bills say the “relocation site shall be on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.” But moving the monument indoors will “enable the University to protect the monument from further defacement and damage to ensure that the monument will be preserved for future generations to gain an understanding of the legacy of slavery and the history of the Civil War.”
Under the new bill, the statue would have to be moved by April 1, 2020. The bill allocates $10,000 in nonrecurring funds to the UNC System Board of Governors to help “identify a site and develop plans for the preservation and permanent relocation of the monument.”
The university has been working to add further contextualization to the campus as a whole.
Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has asked the North Carolina Historical Commission to allow for the movement of three Confederate monuments from the old Capitol grounds in Raleigh to a memorial site in Johnston County. The commission was scheduled to meet this spring to make a decision after a study committee looked into the commission’s options on the issue but no date for that meeting has been set.
It is unclear if the bill will be acted on by Republican leaders in the General Assembly. Both bills have been moved to the Rules committees of their respective legislative chambers.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines