After a naked man tried to blow up a tree and a graduate student threw a mixture of paint and blood on the Confederate memorial on campus last school year, most students at UNC Chapel Hill probably thought they couldn’t be shocked any more. And yet, the night before classes kicked off this semester: the longstanding statue of a Confederate soldier—nicknamed “Silent Sam,” due to his lack of ammunition—was torn down by protesters.
Silent Sam wasn’t particularly popular among students, but the act was surprising nevertheless. There had been countless protests before this one, but all of them started to peter out once students remembered they also had classes they had to attend. But for whatever reason—perhaps the “highly organized” non-student protesters the university seems to think are responsible—this time was different, and at around 9:30 p.m. on August 20 Sam got the Saddam Hussein treatment.
