On our campus

The two most controversial statues on our university’s campus stand only 100 yards apart on McCorkle Place. The Unsung Founders Memorial, a statue of 300 2-foot tall black figures carrying a polished tabletop, and the Confederate Monument, memorializing the 321 UNC alumni who fought in the Civil War, are representative of two very different—perhaps conflicting—ideas. In fact, the Unsung Founders Memorial was only recently added to McCorkle Place in 2002, in response to criticism of the Confederate Monument, standing 20 feel tall since 1913.

The fact that they have been placed so close to one another is, to me, almost offensive. They represent such opposing ideologies and commemorate such different people that I feel like the decision of where to position them should have been more seriously considered. How can people be expected to pay the intended respect to the Unsung Founders Memorial without being bombarded by a 20-foot statue of Confederate soldier, Silent Sam? The obviously intentional placement and juxtaposition of these two statues is a blatant breach of respect for the Unsung Founders Memorial, making it more of a mockery than a commemorative statue.

The fact that the Unsung Founders Memorial is a 2-foot high table that people eat at is also disturbing. Memorials are supposed to hold the subject(s) in the utmost esteem, commemorating them for their contribution to society at large. It is embarrassing that the Unsung Founders Memorial is called a memorial. Despite potentially good intentions, the table…is a table. Something people eat off of. Not something people will inherently value for the subjects’ good deeds and contribution to the university.

The offensiveness of the statue has little to do with the choice of artist. Although a black artist might have been more sensitive in the design of the memorial and possibly wouldn’t have made it also function as a table, it is the location and positioning of the statue virtually next to the Confederate Monument that bothers me the most.