Remnants of 'Silent Sam' Confederate Statue Removed From UNC Campus

The chancellor, Carol L. Folt, said Monday that she had authorized the removal of the statue’s base, which bore plaques commemorating university students who fought for the Confederacy. She simultaneously made a surprise announcement that she would be resigning at the end of the academic year.

But on Tuesday afternoon, her departure was hastened to the end of this month, after a vote by the board of governors, which oversees the statewide university system. Harry L. Smith Jr., the chairman of the board, called Folt’s action “stunning” and “draconian.”

“It’s probably in the best interest to go ahead and allow a change in leadership so we can move to a healing process,” said Smith, who on Monday evening complained that the board had not been properly consulted.

Folt, who said she was “disappointed” in the expedited timeline, had decided to have the monument’s base removed because she believed it posed a threat to the public. She said the removal happened in the middle of the night because of safety concerns.

“Threats have continued to grow and place our community at a serious risk,” Folt said.

“I’m sorry for the disruption to the campus,” she said of the Silent Sam controversy. “It’s not something any of us want.”

In August, protesters toppled the statue, which depicts a Confederate soldier grasping his rifle. The soldier is considered “silent” because he has no ammunition for his weapon.

The students and community members who brought down the statue saw it as an emblem of white supremacy and bigotry. In the days that followed, some counterprotesters arrived draped in Confederate flags, clashing with those who wanted the statue removed for good.

The statue itself has been absent from its former home in a large park at the entrance to the campus ever since. What remained was a tall base with a relief that depicted a woman beseeching a university student to join the Confederate army.

At 1 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, the university sent out a news release stating that it was in the process of removing that base for “storage in a secure location.” Images showed a crane lifting the base from the ground while construction workers stood by, the pitch black scene lit by floodlights. A crowd cheered as the base was removed, The Associated Press reported.

The statue’s toppling touched off political tensions between North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature, which elects the board of governors, and the university community, a liberal enclave in a red state. Smith, the chairman of the board of governors, which is elected by the state legislature, reacted angrily to the initial toppling of the statue, calling it vandalism.

The university’s decision-making has been severely limited by a 2015 state law declaring that a “monument, memorial or work of art owned by the state may not be removed, relocated or altered in any way” without the consent of a state historical commission. The university’s board of trustees defended Folt’s unilateral decision to remove the statue’s base, saying she had “ultimate authority over campus public safety.”

Numerous cities, from Charleston, South Carolina, to Charlottesville, Virginia, have grappled in recent years with how to handle symbols of the Confederacy. On Monday, a judge in Alabama overturned a state law intended to prevent the removal of Confederate monuments from public property, writing that it violated the free speech rights of the community, The Associated Press reported.

To many students and community members in Chapel Hill, Silent Sam, built with support from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, is inseparable from the institution of slavery. At the statue’s unveiling in 1913, one speaker boasted that, just 100 yards away, he had “horsewhipped a Negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds” after his return from the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in 1865.

In October, as the controversy raged over the statue, Folt apologized on behalf of the university for the “profound injustices of slavery.”

Two months later, Folt outlined a plan for the statue that involved housing it in a multimillion-dollar building off campus that would include other historical artifacts. But the board of governors rejected the plan, and Folt later admitted that the solution had not satisfied anyone.

Officials are scheduled to release a new plan for the monument in March.

Edwin B. Fisher, a professor of public health who has organized faculty letters in support of the statue’s removal, said many on campus had celebrated Folt’s action. But he said it was clear that the debate over the monument’s final resting place was just beginning.

“It felt like a win,” Fisher said of the monument’s removal. “But it’s not finished, unfortunately.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.