At “Symbols of the South and The First Amendment,” a panel discussion for the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy’s First Amendment Day, University monuments and Carolina Hall were dissected by panelists and audience members.
“To me, Silent Sam is essentially memorializing Americans who took up arms to fight for their home state,” College Republicans Chairperson Frank Pray said. “They still are United States veterans, and therefore they still deserve to be memorialized accordingly.”
Silent Sam, a monument to students who fought with the Confederacy in the Civil War, has been altered four times in the past three months. But student activists say the monument represents pro-confederacy and anti-black sentiments.
Fitzhugh Brundage, a history professor who focuses on the American South, said monuments like Silent Sam are often gifts built by volunteer workers.
“There was always the assumption that you could put those monuments up and take them down, and they were taken down,” Brundage said. “The landscape we have now, for practical purposes, is essentially frozen.”
After the renaming of Carolina Hall in May, the Board of Trustees put a 16-year ban on renaming University buildings in place.
“I think that the University’s role is to foster an environment that makes all students feel safe and welcome on campus,” said Resita Cox, president of Ebony Reader’s Onyx Theatre and a member of the Black Student Movement.
“When you hand out diversity fliers to Indian students (and) African-American students, and then you get here and there are monuments that are standing against everything that your community is for —it’s just a slap in the face.”
