Posted on 08/20/2018 7:35:19 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Protesters on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill campus on Monday night brought down a controversial monument dedicated to Confederate soldiers, according to media reports.
The Daily Tar Heel posted a series of photos and videos that showed protesters surrounding the monument and shrouding it in banners around 8 p.m. The monument was covered in a canvas that read “For a World Without White Supremacy.”
By about 9:30 p.m., protesters had toppled the monument, and began burying its head in dirt.
Police appeared to form a boundary around the statue and its empty pedestal a short time later, The Daily Tar Heel reported.
A student took credit earlier this year for dousing the monument with blood and red ink amid a national pushback to monuments that honor the Confederacy. Maya Little now faces criminal charges for defacing the statue. The Silent Sam statue was built on the UNC campus in 1913, but has emerged as a source of tension in recent years. UNC Chancellor Carol Folt told the News & Observer in April that while she believes the statue is “detrimental” to the university, it cannot be moved.
The fate of monuments honoring Confederate soldiers have become a hot-button issue in the wake of last year's violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The "Unite the Right Rally" was planned in August 2017 in response to the city's plans to remove a state of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
A number of municipalities have moved to take down Confederate monuments following the rally, where a woman was killed when white nationalists clashed with counter-protesters.
President Trump, who drew widespread condemnation for his response to Charlottesville, opposed removing the statues, saying the removals amount to the "history and culture" of the United States "being ripped apart."
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