CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — A Confederate statue in the heart of North Carolina’s flagship university was toppled Monday night during a rally by hundreds of protesters who decried the memorial known as “Silent Sam” as a symbol of racist heritage.
The crowd gathered across the street from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill plaza for a series of speakers at 7 p.m. before heading over to the quadrangle. Then, about two hours into the protest, a group surrounded the statue and pulled it down, according to television footage. Once it was on the ground, demonstrators kicked it and cheered.
Many students, faculty and alumni have 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.
If you want such memorials as “Silent Sam” removed then work to change the law that allows a peaceful removal of the racist symbol. It is criminally wrong to vandalize public or private property in this manner.
I am all for the removal of Confederate Memorials to the Slave South and or its Rebellion against the United States or the Icons of that Rebellion.
But not in this manner!
Tell you what, the faces of some in that crowd, in the other article’s pictures, they are downright scary.
