Protesters topple Silent Sam statue at UNC-Chapel Hill

The monument came down after 9:15 p.m. Earlier in the evening, protesters covered the statue with gray banners, erecting “an alternative monument” that said, in part, “For a world without white supremacy.”

Protesters apparently were working behind the covering with ropes to bring the statue down, which happened more than two hours into a rally. It fell with a loud clanging sound, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

After Silent Sam tumbled to the ground, people darted in and out of the crowd amid smoke bombs. People rushed to the remains, taking photos of the monument that had been erected in 1913 with donations from the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The statue has been the focus of protests and vandalism for decades. UNC spent $390,000 on security around the statue last year.

The gathering downtown on Franklin Street started as a demonstration in solidarity with a UNC graduate student who faces criminal and honor court charges for throwing red ink and blood on the Confederate statue in April. The event quickly morphed into a march across the street to the UNC campus, where police officers stood at the monument.

A skirmish broke out early when someone threw a smoke bomb. Police chased one protester and arrested another for resisting, delaying and obstructing an officer.

The crowd quickly took control of the area immediately around the statue, hoisting four tall banners in a square that almost completely covered it. The head of the Confederate soldier occasionally poked out from the top of the banners.

Police formed a perimeter around protesters. One banner said, “The whole world is watching. Which side are you on?” Some of the demonstrators wore Carolina blue bandannas over their faces that said, “Sam must fall.”

Several bystanders wearing Confederate flags on T-shirts watched the protest and some engaged in arguments with protesters.

The event, which began outside the downtown post office in Chapel Hill, unfolded as students begin a new semester at UNC-CH, almost a year after a massive protest against Silent Sam in the aftermath of violence in Charlottesville. Protesters vowed to sustain the pressure on the university to relocate the Confederate monument, but campus and UNC System officials insist state law prevented them from doing so.

UNC-CH released a statement Monday night:

“Around 9:20 p.m., a group from among an estimated crowd of 250 protesters brought down the Confederate Monument on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Tonight’s actions were dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured. We are investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage.”

The question by late Monday was what will happen to the statue now that it has been forced down.

The rally started with the singing of the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Maya Little, the doctoral history student who doused the statue with ink and her own blood in April, was arrested on a criminal charge of defacing a public statue and an honor court violation at the university. At the rally, protesters chanted her name. She took the microphone and spoke of a black man, James Lewis Cates, who was stabbed by a white motorcycle gang on the UNC-CH campus in the early 1970s.

Little’s action in April, which she has said symbolized the “black blood” at the statue’s foundation, has become a rallying cry of those who oppose the Confederate monument on the UNC-CH campus.

Another graduate student, Jerry Wilson, said being a black man on the UNC-CH campus can be a lonely experience. He read what he said was a letter he had written to Chancellor Carol Folt.

“When you have to take the long way between classes in order to avoid the sight of a statue that denies your human dignity, the Southern Part of Heaven can feel an awful lot like hell,” said Wilson, who studies education.

He said the university had bowed to the wishes of donors and well-heeled leaders who want to see the statue stay at UNC-CH.

Wilson placed a rope, fashioned as a noose, around his neck and vowed to wear it until Silent Sam was gone. He said the rope would symbolize what he said is a hostile environment created by the statue.

After the initial skirmish, town and university police officers took a hands off approach, standing a short distance away, watching the protest. After about two hours, the marchers headed to Franklin Street followed by many of the officers. A core group of protesters stayed with the statue.

A short time later, Silent Sam came down, sending people screaming and jumping in disbelief. Smoke bombs were set off around what was left of the monument.

Retired professor Hodding Carter III was walking his dog in the area when he saw what happened, but could barely believe his eyes.

“I’m really glad that when it happened, it did not involve a great deal of bloodshed,” Carter said. “I am stunned that it happened when it happened. I am really amazed that as far as I can see, nobody got clobbered, nobody got banged up.”

Police stood guard over the pedestal and the fallen statue, while people in the crowd hugged and raised their cell phones to capture the moment.

Rain began to fall, and thunder rolled in.

In the distance, car horns sounded on Franklin Street, but this time the commotion wasn’t about a basketball championship.

But it sounded like it. In the pouring rain, the crowd around Silent Sam chanted: “Tar!” “Heels!”