Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

In the chronology

1. 1908 UNC trustees approve the United Daughters of the Confederacy's request to build a Confederate monument on the campus The board of trustees approved a request from the North Carolina Division of the UDC for a monument on the campus. President Francis P. Venable took part in the planning and fund-raising and later committed university money when UDC and alumni contributions fell short. People: Francis Preston Venable
2. 1910 John Wilson begins designing UNC's Confederate monument After the monument committee weighed competing designs, it chose Canadian sculptor John Wilson's design for the Confederate soldier statue planned for the UNC campus. Wilson began the work in 1910, using sixteen-year-old Harold Langlois of Boston as his model. People: Francis Preston Venable
3. March 14, 1911 Bettie Jackson London publishes the design for the campus monument and appeals for the $7,500 Writing from Pittsboro as chairman of the UDC monument committee, Mrs. Henry A. London described the monument designed by the sculptor John Wilson, a soldier above a bronze tablet of the State calling a student from his books, and warned that the chapters had not met their pledges and the unveiling at the semicentennial commencement was in doubt.
4. April 1, 1911 The Tar Heel reports the monument's unveiling put off from the 1911 commencement for want of funds The paper reported that the UDC chapters had been unable to fulfill their pledges toward the $7,500, so the monument could not be unveiled at the June 1911 commencement, the fiftieth anniversary of the war's beginning, and would certainly be unveiled in 1912. It was in fact dedicated in June 1913.
5. 1913–2018 Silent Sam On June 2, 1913, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and UNC alumni dedicated a Confederate soldier statue in McCorkle Place, and Julian Carr's dedication speech boasted of whipping a Black woman. The monument drew decades of protest until demonstrators pulled it down on August 20, 2018. People: Julian S. Carr
6. June 2, 1913 UNC's Confederate Monument is dedicated On the second day of commencement Major H. A. London introduced Governor Craig; Mrs. London presented the monument to the trustees for the UDC, President Francis P. Venable accepted it for the university, and Julian S. Carr spoke for the students of 1861. Carr's speech, which praised the Confederate army and recounted his horsewhipping of a Black woman in the village in 1865, is the part now most remembered. People: Julian S. Carr, John A. Wilson, Locke Craig
7. September 1, 2011 Demonstrators re-read Julian Carr's 1913 dedication speech at the monument and unveil a mock plaque A campus demonstration read Carr's dedication-day speech aloud at the statue and unveiled a new plaque of its own giving the monument's history. The Daily Tar Heel reported a further Real Silent Sam movement protest on the statue's history later that month.
8. June 2, 2013 William J. Barber II speaks at a rally at Silent Sam on its 100th anniversary On the Confederate monument's 100th anniversary, William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, spoke at a rally at its foot organized by the Real Silent Sam Committee, saying the statue had never been silent.
9. August 20, 2018 Silent Sam is toppled On the evening of August 20, 2018, the eve of fall classes, about 250 protesters pulled UNC's Confederate monument in McCorkle Place from its pedestal at around 9:20 p.m. The toppling followed a year of campaigning for removal after the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and campus authorities took the statue to an undisclosed location.
10. August 28, 2018 The UNC Board of Governors gives Chapel Hill until November 15 to propose a 'lawful and lasting' plan for the monument Eight days after the toppling, the Board of Governors met for nearly two hours in closed session and adopted a resolution directing Chancellor Folt and the trustees to present by November 15 a plan offering 'a lawful and lasting path that protects public safety, preserves the monument and its history'. Thom Goolsby cast the lone no vote, and the board ordered an outside review of the University's handling of the August 20 protest. The trustees met the same day.
11. December 3, 2018 UNC trustees vote to house the monument in a new $5.3 million University History and Education Center At a special meeting the Board of Trustees approved a four-part plan for the Board of Governors: relocate the statue and tablets into a new free-standing building at the former Odum Village site on south campus, add a McCorkle Place gateway with plaques, and continue contextualizing campus history. The center was priced at $5.3 million with $800,000 a year to operate; Folt said police advised that the statue could not safely return to McCorkle Place.
12. January 14 and 15, 2019 Folt orders the Silent Sam pedestal removed and announces she will step down Folt ordered the removal on the Monday and announced in a campuswide email that she would resign, saying the remaining parts of the monument threatened the safety of the community. The university said at 1 a.m. on Tuesday that removal had begun, and by 2:40 a.m. a crew had taken the last of the base from the quad.
13. November 27, 2019 The UNC System gives Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a $2.5 million trust in a same-day consent judgment The North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the UNC System and Board of Governors over the monument and a consent judgment was entered the same day in Orange County Superior Court. The System handed over the statue, to be kept outside the fourteen counties with a System campus, and endowed a $2.5 million charitable trust from non-state funds for its care and display. Board chair Randy Ramsey said the deal let the University 'move forward'.
14. February 12, 2020 Judge Allen Baddour voids the Silent Sam settlement in Hillsborough for lack of standing At a hearing in Hillsborough, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had no standing to bring the suit and set aside the consent judgment and the $2.5 million trust. Five UNC students and a faculty member represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law had sought to intervene; their motion was denied but the judge took up the standing question they raised.

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