Unfortunately, Silent Sam won’t be getting his new multimillion dollar crib at UNC:
“he University of North Carolina has rejected a $5.3 million proposal to build a new home for “Silent Sam,” the statue of a Confederate soldier that was toppled from its pedestal in August by protesters at the flagship campus in Chapel Hill.
The university system’s board of governors on Friday cited concerns about public safety and the use of state funds for the project. The governors voted instead to form a committee to work with Chancellor Carol Folt and the Chapel Hill board of trustees to come up with a new plan.
The board of trustees last week recommended a new “history and education center” to house the statue and other exhibits from the university’s history. The center would have cost $5.3 million to build and $800,000 per year to run.
That plan prompted protests last week. Students, faculty and civil rights groups say Silent Sam, which stood on the Chapel Hill campus for more than a century, glorifies racism, slavery and white supremacy.
The governors directed the board of trustees to review other relocation options and submit a new recommendation by March 15. …”
In other words, the can has been kicked down the road to March 15. Silent Sam will eventually return to the UNC campus. The only question is when and where and how much crying there will be about it.
The path of least resistance would just be to put Sam back in an open public space. That, of course, would just leave him vulnerable to new acts of vandalism. I can’t think of any other solution that wouldn’t require significant state funding. Sam may well be a dead man walking…or standing, if you prefer.
There is probably a similar situation at the University of Michigan where the entrance to the Law Quad is adorned with swastikas. The endowment says no modifiction to the structure. My guess is they have been removed but I haven’t seen any news about it.
The best course of action would be to remove all social science and liberal arts programs from taxpayer funded universities, so that only serious students and serious fields of study would remain.
If this was a Martin Luther Coon statue it would have already been enshrined in a gold-plated room with a 24-hour/day armed guard.
Just more creeping Judeo-Catholicism in North Carolina.
EVERYONE … get on all social media and Yelp, and 1 star that scummy university. Be sure to do it for a variety of reasons. Don’t mention SS. Pour out as much bad publicity as you can so no whites will want their kids there. Turn it into an all black college.
Diversity means everyone else but whites …
The Unsung Founders Memorial at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is located in McCorkle Place, one of the University’s quads. The memorial is a black granite tabletop supported by 300 bronze figurines and surrounded by 5 black stone seats. The inscription around the edge of the table reads: The Class Of 2002 Honors The University’s Unsung Founders – The People Of Color Bound And Free – Who Helped Build The Carolina That We Cherish Today.