Silent Sam is down!

Great Debates
1

In 1898, the Wilmington massacre–a murderous coup against a democratically elected government–heralded the return of violent white supremacy in North Carolina.

Fifteen years later, Silent Sam–a monument to violent white supremacy–was erected in my home town of Chapel Hill.

During the dedication speech, the orator bragged about torturing–in public, in broad daylight, without the slightest fear of punishment–a black woman, for the crime of not knowing her place.

In early days, there were people who walked past that statue who had been forced into slave labor by other people who walked past that statue. This was entirely intentional.

Later, many of the people who walked past that statue lived in dorms built by the slave labor of the parents, then grandparents, then great-grandparents, of others who walked past that statue.

When it became clear that people were finally ready to remove this monument to murderous white supremacy, our state legislator–elected via means that suppressed the votes of black North Carolinians with “surgical precision”–refused to allow Chapel Hill to decide, democratically, how to handle such matters.

A monument erected without democracy and maintained without democracy may be demolished without democracy.

I don’t think I have ever been prouder of my home town.

(I put this is Great Debates for what I hope are obvious reasons: this removal of a statue is an almost perfect laboratory for discussing this specific type of nonviolent civil disobedience, and I’ve made my position clear. Please don’t decide it belongs in MPSIMS, because I welcome the debate.)

2

This is an interesting OP that seems to have inadvertently omitted a link to a published fuller description of the event(s) proposed for discussion.

3

Here’s a WaPo story.

4

The interesting backstory to the Wilmington massacre is that it overthrew the “Fusion” government, which was a movement that integrated white and black interests. People forget that there had been real progress in terms of race relations in places throughout the South, with North Carolina being among the more moderate of former slave states. The “Fusion” movement was in some ways like the centrist party, and it had gained significant political power in no small part by encouraging blacks to vote. It sought to address economic concerns shared by both whites and blacks. Their leaders, like Silas Wright, were educated and principled.

The White supremacists, on the other hand, were led by White conservatives (Democrats at that time), and among them were wealthy whites whose only interest was in having a source of cheap labor. The White supremacists were typically avowed enemies of not only racial integration but also organized labor and workers’ rights. They were anti-egalitarian, and largely anti-democratic. And when it became clear that they were no longer politically popular and had lost the popular vote, they resorted to, shall we say, less democratic means. They first waged a war of racist propaganda, and then they essentially waged a war of real violence against blacks and white moderates. Within 2 years, a society that had been progressive and optimistic about race had been transformed into a community that ushered in the Jim Crow era of violent White supremacy.

It took just 2 years - 2 years - to make the transformation to a society that aimed to be democratic and egalitarian to one that was racist and authoritarian. It should remind us of how fragile our situation is now. The parallels to the world of today are striking, and we’d be fools to ignore them.

5

Fair point, and thanks for adding the link, Crotalus. I made a bunch of claims in the OP, all of which are citeable, but I was trying to dash it off before heading to work; I’ll add cites for stuff later today, if others don’t beat me to the punch.

But here are two:

Dedication Speech:

Wilmington Massacre:

6

Nothing to debate from me, but thank you for the history lesson; this one had slipped by me before.

7

There is an argument making the (perpetual) rounds, that old monuments should be left up - that they educate everyone about history. The people making this argument do have a point.

In honour of both history and truth, I propose that the old monument be kept, to serve as the interior pillar (the old monument completely covered, without any trace or indication of its existence) for a new monument celebrating all the mixed-race families of North Carolina. The truth of history in visual form - the old oppressor not gone, but his name and likeness forgotten, and his exploits used as a stepping stone to greater things.

8

No they don’t. Not when the monuments were erected to celebrate white supremacism and show defiance towards advocacy of civil rights. Such monuments are misleading and extremely harmful to our country by implying that the Confederacy can or should be honored as anything other than a white supremacist cause.

9

Did you finish reading yet? That part was sarcastic or ironic or whatever is the right term. I did go on to propose obliterating the old monument with something deliberately tuned to make the old bastard spin in his grave.

10

(Maybe my tone is way off, I’m sorry. I’m much closer than most sane people are to the feeling that the way through current US problems is to disenfranchise southern Republicans until they learn to perceive the existence of human beings other than their solipsistic little selves.)

11

Sorry, I missed the sarcasm – I thought you were saying something like “they have a point, but…” and I was responding “no, they don’t have a point at all”.

12

Yes, but the “history” they want to preserve is the artificial one that the rebellion was about states’ rights, the Lost Cause, and Gone With The Wind, not preserving slavery, and that the monuments to it were not erected to reinforce racial oppression. That “history” *needs *to be erased, but one way do it that its proponents never seem to offer is that these monuments to white supremacy be labeled as such, with signage explaining why they were really erected, and the history lesson being along the lines of “This represents what our ancestors used to think and do, but fortunately we as a society finally outgrew it”.

Has the UNC administration ever explained why the statue was left up for so long? Surely a decision has been forced upon them more than once.

13

As the OP noted: the governor put up laws to prohibit removing Statues of their beloved traitors in order to pander to the ‘much herituge’ crowd. You may note that the UNC is complaining about safety regulations not being adhered to during the downing, but they don’t say much about the statue.

14

The governor’s being circumspect, too.

“The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities.”

That’s about as political an answer as I’ve ever read.

15

That was put in place pretty recently. What was their public position before?

16

Not sure what the debate is, but I did have a question. I read the WP article, and was wondering if Julian Carr just dedicated the statue, or did he pay for it (get it designed and built, etc)? It was unclear.

Regardless, I think the people had the right to tear that thing down, especially given the context it was put up under. I don’t say all monuments and statues should be torn down, but this one definitely deserved to be. Perhaps that’s the debate…

17

The current governor had nothing to do with the laws on NC statues not being moved . Those were passed in 2015 by the very conservative NC general assembly with the former GOP governor.

18

I do wish the university had responded in 2015 by leaving the statue up as this law required, but surrounded by photos of lynchings and the text of the dedicatory speech to put it in true historical context.

19

Governor Cooper’s statement–“violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities”–serves as a good point. I disagree, for a couple of reasons:

  1. This was unlawful, but it wasn’t violent, in the normal meaning of the word. To the best of my knowledge, nobody suffered the tiniest scrape or bruise from this incident, nor did the protestors intend to inflict booboos on any living person.
  2. When a statue is put up to promote terrorism, and when its removal is thwarted by an un-democratically-elected legislature, the nonviolent destruction of this public property has every bit as much place in our society as the removal of Saddam statues had in Iraqi society. Indeed, these protesters are part of a very proud traditions of tearing down monuments to tyranny.

To answer your other question: the statue was paid for by University alumni and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the latter group being formed to promote white supremacy and a pro-Confederate (and pro-slavery) view of the American Civil War.

I don’t know who the alumni were who paid for the statue. Given the political climate in the years following the Wilmington Massacre, the odds are overwhelming that the alumni in question were avowed white supremacists, and it’s very possible that at least some of them had enslaved people themselves, and/or had committed terrorism under white hoods.

20

As for its replacement, I believe that should be left up to the good folks of Chapel Hill to decide, but I have a suggestion for what moment in history could be memorialized: this one. Melt down Silent Sam and use the materials to fashion a sort of reverse Iwo Jima, showing the community working together to dismantle white supremacy by tearing down its mascot.