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Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are getting a little uncomfortable with “Silent Sam,” the statue on campus (right) that commemorates UNC students who died fighting in the Civil War.
According to an article by Lana Douglas at the The News & Observer:
The Real Silent Sam movement hopes to spark dialogue and provoke critical thought about the meanings behind the monuments and buildings of Chapel Hill. It hopes to provide the public with information that goes beyond standard narratives.
Members of The Real Silent Sam movement have lots of opinions about what should be done about the statue. Some think it should be removed. Adding a more detailed plaque or moving Silent Sam was compared to the removal of the Confederate flag from a public building by [UNC alumnus Aleck] Stephens, “(It’s) not necessarily promoting amnesia, it’s just simply saying, ‘We don’t want to represent ourselves as being a part of something that is not true to our values now,’ ” he said.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy erected the statute widely known as Silent Sam on campus in 1913. It is a monument to the 321 UNC alumni who died in the Civil War. More than 1000 people from the school left UNC to fight in the war.
Several other Southern colleges have debated Confederate symbols on their campuses.
Part of the trouble here is that the actual history of the South includes a lot of incidents of rather dubious moral legitimacy. But history is ugly; the fact that the statue provokes debate is a good thing. That’s why people go to college, to confront ideas.
But would it really be beneficial to remove the statue? Make no mistake; the Confederate States of America existed primarily to preserve slavery. The students who left UNC to fight for the Confederacy were doing so to support the continuance of slavery. Many of them were from families who owned slaves. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was mostly composed of women from families who owned slaves before the war and probably looked back with pleasure on that time.
But that’s just the way it is. Leaving that out, leaving no monument to the men, doesn’t seem like an improvement on the current situation. That’s the thing about wars, they’re offensive. But it was certainly an important part of the character of the university, and it’s well worth noting.
Last week someone taped a sign to the statue that read, in part:
This memorial to Confederate soldiers who left the university perpetuates an incomplete and inaccurate history - one that intentionally neglects the vast number of North Carolinians who opposed secession and the Confederacy. The original supporters of this monument, both town and university leaders, were motivated by racism and were colluders in a statewide campaign to establish white dominance.
Well okay, but the monument doesn’t honor the original supporters of the monument; it honors the soldiers who died. They were fighting—some 40 percent of the student body, the highest percentage of any school in America, during the first half of the 1860s—for the right to preserve slavery. And they lost.
But they were still young men in college. People loved them and they died. Of course it’s an incomplete picture; monuments always are. But inaccurate, how?
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Jason on September 08, 2011 7:16 PM:
There are two problems with the arguments in this post. First, while it is certainly true that it is worth "noting" that many UNC students fought for the Confederacy, the relevant question is whether it is worth honoring. That is what monuments do; they honor things, not just note them.
All the points in the post about how we should register that history is ugly and that debate is healthy are true but irrelevant. That something is noteworthy or debate-worthy is not in itself any reason at all to think that it should be honored. Many unhonorable things are worth noting and debating.
Second, the post seems to imply that a monument can honor soldiers without even slightly honoring the cause they fought for. That is a fantasy. A monument is too blunt an instrument for such subtleties. Imagine a monument that purports to honor drafted Nazi soldiers but not the cause the fought for. There is a reason Germany does not build such monuments.
DkHiggs on April 10, 2012 8:51 AM:
While I greatly appreciate your stance on the matter, I am forced to ask one question. Did you attend a university at any point? If so, I would reccomend a strongly worded letter to your professors (& maybe actually fact check this one).... Because while your sentiments remain valid, your neglect of history & fact is grossly obvious. I would be willing to bet that you have never actually researched the civil war & have blindly let society press their agenda & skewed perception of those events, right into your very belief system? Please correct me of I'm wrong- But Darlin', your lack historical knowledge has sadly negated your credibility & overshadowed your purpose in writing this peace.
Slavery had nothing to do with the Confederates States fight & struggle..... That is a propaganda that has been widely accepted, because to be honest it's easier to stomach than what really happened- let the "Hillbillies" take the fall ;))
bluestatedon on April 11, 2012 6:01 AM:
"Slavery had nothing to do with the Confederates States fight & struggle..."
I've been hearing you apologists for the Confederacy sling the same crock of shit since the early 1960s. It's the same crock of shit that was used to justify Southern resistance to federal civil rights legislation of the time, too. You can yammer all you want about "states' rights," but it does not change the fact that the economic system—especially in agriculture—in the Confederate States relied to a significant extent on slave labor. To assert that this system of slave labor wasn't incredibly important to the economic interests of southern landowners and merchants is belied by the vast efforts expended in chasing down fugitive slaves, and in maintaining the cultural mindset that justified slavery in the first place. You can use your condescending "Darlin'" all day long, but it doesn't change any of those facts, nor does it blind anybody not already firmly in your "states' rights" camp to begin with.
That being said, I think taking down the statue is stupid. If nothing else, it's a valuable cultural artifact.