On August 20, 2018, the famed, prominent, and extremely controversial statue of a Confederate soldier on the University of North Carolina’s main quad was knocked down in a night of fury and realization. Some say that this statue — dubbed “Silent Sam” — represents the immense sacrifices made by the Confederate troops, and it should return to where it was. On the other side of the issue are those who say that Silent Sam had its downfall coming for a long time because of the oppressive ideals that he fought for in the Civil War. As someone who was born and raised in North Carolina, I have to agree with the latter of these arguments. It’s unacceptable to keep these statues up all over the state and country when their whole history is stained with white supremacy and hatred.
Silent Sam was erected much after the end of the Civil War in 1913, but still during a time of racial tension and Jim Crow laws. The group that created this statue was not the government or the university, but the United Daughters of the Confederacy: a group widely regarded as advocates for white supremacy. Moreover, the speech at Silent Sam’s dedication was also given by a well known white supremacist. I hope I don’t need to elaborate further as to why celebrating a statue formed in the name of “the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon” –– as said in the dedication speech –– is morally reprehensible. We cannot continue to ignore the past of this statue and so many others established under the same circumstances.
Even though Silent Sam, whoever he was, made many sacrifices in the name of his country, we cannot forget the truth of what he, and the rest of the Confederates, fought for. It’s impossible to separate the bravery of the soldiers from the disgusting racism of the Confederates. In our country’s current state, we cannot still have these symbols of hatred glorified all over the country, especially in places like college campuses and government property. What message do these statues send to the many black UNC students that walk by Silent Sam every day, or to the families who picnic in a government-owned park under the shadow of a Robert E. Lee statue? On the other hand, what about those who are somehow inspired by these figures? Honoring racist Confederate soldiers creates people like neo-Confederates. It leads to people like Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who shot and killed nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston — who was also photographed with a Confederate flag. We never know, or we know and choose to ignore, the full extent of just how much these statues affect the American people — that is very dangerous.
Silent Sam, and all of its fellow Confederate statues, are symbols of not just heroic actions, but also more significantly, of violent white supremacy. It angers me that North Carolina’s government has not only failed to act on citizens’ complaints about these statues, but has also passed laws to protect them. Furthermore, it’s unacceptable that UNC’s leaders have barely responded to years of opposition to Silent Sam from faculty and students alike. I’m not fully supportive of the method that was used to take down the statue — it was violent and illegal — but when it comes down to it, it was necessary. These statues cannot remain in such prominent places, seen by so many every day. No matter what you believe in, Silent Sam had no place on UNC’s campus, and Confederate ideals have absolutely no place in our country.
