Mob triumphs over silent statue

The mob rules. Long live the mob.

Last night, 200 or more people gathered around the "Silent Sam" statue in Chapel Hill and succeeded in toppling and destroying the statue memorializing the University of North Carolina students who served and died in the Civil War.

For several years, the statue had been a rallying point for protesters who claimed the statue was not a memorial to former students who died in America's most tragic war, disregarding the inscription on the statue's pedestal and the clear intent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy who funded the memorial. Protesters asserted that the statue was intended to perpetuate white supremacy, although white supremacy was not at issue in the Civil War. White supremacy was part of the culture of 19th century America and Europe. Although a speaker at the monument's dedication added inappropriate racist comments, his words did not change the reason for the memorial.

I addressed the historical background of the statue in a blog post from a year ago.

What happened last night on a once-peaceful quadrangle of the historic UNC campus had been brewing for at least a year. A year ago, another, smaller mob attacked a Confederate memorial in Durham. While law enforcement officers watched disinterestedly, vandals climbed the statue of an anonymous soldier, attached ropes and pulled it to the ground. Although numerous witnesses, including the do-nothing law officers, and video of the event would have made prosecution an open-and-shut case, Durham prosecutors, through malfeasance or incompetence, failed to get even one conviction. That non-prosecution has provided a green light for vandals, socialists and anarchists.

Monday night's mob was well-equipped with banners that would shield their vandalism from view and with smoke bombs to obscure illegal acts. This was a well-planned operation in clear violation of numerous laws, including destruction of public property. Police mostly watched from a distance.

Silent Sam stood for a century without doing harm to anyone (see Andrew Young's comments from my Aug. 23, 2017, post), but protesters assigned to this inanimate object the burdens of centuries of immorality and wrongdoing. Toppling this statue will not put an end to injustice or unfairness in society. It will jeopardize the rule of law.

What traditional artifact will be next? Chapel Hill's cemetery contains the graves of slave owners, white supremacists and unenlightened Euro-Americans. Their gravestones will be easier to knock down than Silent Sam's statue. The town of Carrboro is named for Julian Carr, who made the offensive racist remarks at the statue's dedication. Should all town signs be removed? Must the town's name be changed?

Who's next? Most American presidents prior to the Civil War owned slaves. Most who didn't own slaves did not consider African Americans their equals. Must all those public officials be disparaged and stricken because 21st century morality differs from the morality as they understood it?

Long before Silent Sam became a flashpoint for civil rights and racial equality, his bronze visage was a remembrance of UNC students who died in the Civil War. His statue was erected by descendants still mourning the deaths of their loved ones and the economic devastation of their entire region. If that memorial is to be removed or hidden, the decision to take that action should be made in an open, rational and democratic process.

The door to mob rule, once opened, is not easily closed.