Confederate Symbols, Carolina, and Controversy: An Adaptive Analysis of the South’s Civil War Symbology

*In 2016, the SOL program pivoted for the year to focus on political engagement in what was then called the “Political Engagement Pilot Project,” or PEPP. This was an alternative version of SOL that laid the groundwork for the development of the PEP program as it currently exists.

The primary problem facing the Real Silent Sam Coalition is that even though you have had success raising public awareness against Civil War monuments on UNC’s campus, there are no easy options for removing them from campus. Although in the past, you specifically protested the “Silent Sam” statue, Governor Pat McCrory signed SB22 into law last year, requiring legislative approval before a monument may be taken down. Such approval is unlikely to be forthcoming, meaning the statue will likely remain in place for many years. Your earlier victory in advocating for the renaming of Saunders Hall, which became Carolina Hall, was met by a policy of the UNC Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees that effectively barred building name changes for sixteen years.
To some extent, this indicates that your actions are having the desired effect of generating conversations about these complex issues. On the other hand, these policies effectively limit your ability to advocate for full change to these symbols. Further, these policies disincentivize addressing these markers of the Civil War. Without an easy option to remove the monuments, the UNC Chapel Hill community feels less motivation to launch the necessary conversations about their place on campus, but the hurt they cause marginalize members of the community remains. There are several other buildings on campus whose namesakes were involved with various white supremacist campaigns during their lifetimes. The Real Silent Sam Coalition is now barred from addressing these. Therefore, you must look to alternative methods for achieving your goals. These may include advocacy efforts that will undo SB22 and the Board of Trustees’ moratorium on building name changes or a decision by your leadership that simply adding contextual information to the monuments on campus is sufficient. In this memo, I list three policy alternatives, from least to most feasible.