Durham’s own Silent Sam

While Silent Sam has created controversy on UNC’s campus, 12 miles down the road, Durham’s own Confederate Soldiers Monument is stirring tensions.

The monument, located just outside the Durham courthouse and dedicated in 1924, attracted protesters last week hoping to address the racial tensions surrounding such monuments.

“I think this is the most pertinent discussion that should be had at this point in our history, based on the events over the last 12 months in this country,” said Paul Scott, an activist and minister in Durham who protested the Confederate statue.

Claude Clegg, professor of history and African, African American and Diaspora studies at UNC, said these monuments have come under greater scrutiny as police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement have brought race issues to the fore. He said these monuments memorialize a war fought over the right to own slaves.

“To memorialize that in the 21st century is offensive,” he said.

Scott suggested erecting a statue commemorating slaves across from Durham’s Confederate monument, but others want to remove the statues entirely.

Destinee Grove, co-president of UNC’s NAACP chapter, said walking by Silent Sam, which serves as a constant reminder of her ancestors’ past, is difficult.

“How do you want us to move past these things when we’re constantly confronted with them every day?” she said.

Clegg said conversations regarding UNC’s Silent Sam statue thus far haven’t led to everyone feeling content, and the resulting vandalization is students trying to exercise their free speech rights.

There are obstacles to having productive conversations about racial issues, Grove said.

“White people — people who are not of color — have issues being uncomfortable in having these discussions with people of color,” she said. “They feel they’re not welcome; they feel they’ll be judged; they feel they’ll be discriminated against.”

Scott said white people have historically been in a position that’s led many to feel threatened by change and the resulting loss of advantage.

“That’s the nature of being conservative: You’re conserving, you know, but our people have had nothing to conserve,” he said.

But people of color face negative social outcomes by speaking about race, Grove said.

“As people of color, we have to be able to stand up for ourselves, and say, ‘No, that’s racist. Don’t do that. That’s not OK.’”

She said many administrators seem unwilling to take sides — but it’s up to them and the UNC-system Board of Governors to meet students halfway, Grove said.

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