A board member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has called for the school to re-erect the Confederate statue destroyed by a mob last week.
In a video posted to Youtube, UNC Board of Governors member Thom Goolsby decried the “violent mob” that pulled down the over 100-year-old Confederate memorial named “Silent Sam” and said that the statue will be returned within ninety days.
“Many of you share my concerns and those of my fellow governors of the UNC system as to what recently happened at the Chapel Hill campus where a statue was torn down by a violent mob, and the police stood by and did nothing as that happened,” Goolsby says on his video. “We are investigating everything that occurred. I want you to know that we will do all we can to work with the trustees and the administration to see to it that the perpetrators are punished, that judgment is sought for their felonious criminal acts.”
Goolsby also cites “North Carolina General Statute 100-2.1,” which he says requires the statue of Silent Sam be replaced in 90 days.
“We will make sure that the laws of our state are enforced,” Goolsby adds. “We will do all that we can to protect the students, we will do all that we can to keep off the campus people who are committing crimes, and we will preserve the laws of the state of North Carolina.”
“We will not allow anarchy to reign on our campuses,” he states:
According to the Hill newspaper, “The statute that Goolsby referenced says that ‘objects of remembrance’ must be placed back in their original location after 90 days if they are removed temporarily for a project. The law bars the public property.”
The subject of Confederate statues is still roiling the south, especially those sitting on college campuses. But monuments in liberal cities also face uncertain futures at the hands of mob violence and vandalism. The North Carolina Historical Commission itself recently tried to get ahead of any similar campaigns and voted to maintain three such monuments that sit on the grounds of the state Capitol building in Raleigh, but it voted also to add one about slavery and civil rights to balance them.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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