Toppling of Silent Sam Statue Reignites Debate Over Confederate Monuments
CHARLOTTE, N.C. –Β The toppling of the Silent Sam statue at UNC Chapel Hill is re-igniting the debate over Confederate memorials.
A 2015 state law prohibits removing monuments on public property.
The debate over Silent Sam has raged for years, but his fate was out of the hands of school leaders because of the law.
“Pretty much the law makes it almost impossible for people to legally take these things down,” explains Rep. Chaz Beasley (D), from Mecklenburg County.
Beasley says the law should be repealed, so the fate of Confederate monuments can be left to the local community.
“If towns want to take these down, if people in their towns want to take these down, they should be able to,” Beasley says.
Several Confederate memorials in the Charlotte area have been vandalized in recent years.
In 2015, a monument at Old City Hall was spray painted with the word, “Racist.” It was removed for cleaning and later moved to Elmwood Cemetery.
That’s also where a larger monument dating back to 1887 stands near the graves of Confederate soldiers.
A monument remembering a 1929 Confederate Veterans Reunion stands on county property near Memorial Stadium. Vandalism led to it being protected with a plexiglass box.
This past weekend, someone splattered paint all over the “Fame” statue in Salisbury. The more than 100-year-old monument sits on land owned by the Daughters of the Confederacy.
And in Albemarle, someone covered a statue with graffiti in 2015.
