Nearly 100 years ago, on June 2, 1913, the “Silent Sam” Confederate Monument was unveiled on UNC’s campus.
At the dedication celebration, Julian Shakespeare Carr, namesake of Carrboro and Carr Hall, gave a speech where he triumphantly exclaimed, “I horse-whipped a Negro wench, until her skirts hung in shreds” for insulting a white woman on Franklin Street.
This brutal anecdote was indicative of the times — a period in North Carolina where a racialized caste system was vigorously promoted under “Jim Crow” legislation.
Another important element of the early 20th century white supremacy movement was the erection of Confederate monuments in public spaces to “establish the ‘Confederate dead’ as an idealization of political unity among white Southerners,” as described by Thomas Brown in “Civil War Monuments.”
Nearly 100 years later, the soldier known as Silent Sam still looms over McCorkle Place.
Silent Sam must be understood not only as a memorial to honor the war dead, but, just as significantly, as a symbol of the unending struggle against institutional racism in our community.
In his essay “Fess Up Silent Sam!” scholar and activist Yonni Chapman writes, “We deal with Jim Crow’s legacy every day,” from the “‘minority achievement gap’ in our schools” to the longstanding struggles of University housekeepers — mostly women of color who are underpaid and disrespected on a daily basis.
Racial injustice is not a thing of the past and neither is Silent Sam.
It is in the pursuit of historic accuracy and reconciliation that many campus and community organizers, including The Real Silent Sam and Student Power coalitions, have called the University to establish a plaque on the Silent Sam Monument before the 100-year anniversary in June, offering a more complete rendering of UNC’s racial history.
