Billboards in Raleigh target Silent Sam statue at UNC-Chapel Hill

A national group is behind the placement of two giant billboards looming over Raleigh that are taking aim at the controversial "Silent Sam" statue that stands on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A group called the Independent Media Institute is behind the effort known as The Make It Right Project, which has targeted 10 Confederate statues around the country in an effort to have the monuments taken down. Silent Sam is the only monument in North Carolina that is currently on the group's list.

Protesters deface 'Silent Sam' statue amid call to honor lynching victims on UNC campus

The billboard depicts a photo of Silent Sam, who represents a Confederate soldier, with a giant red X over the Civil War image.

The group has rented two billboards in Raleigh, one on Raleigh Boulevard near Yonkers Road and another one scheduled to be erected this week on Blount Street.

Kali Holloway, senior director of the Make It Right Project, said the group's billboard campaign began in early June and is an attempt to boost inclusiveness. She said the Chapel Hill statue was selected because the group believes its presence is an affront to black students on campus,.and because there's already strong local activism calling for its removal.

"Silent Sam really does create an unsafe atmosphere in a lot of ways," Holloway said. "Black students are greeted each day by a statue that's an ode to people that enslaved them."

UNC Chancellor Carol Folt has said in the past that university administrators do not have the authority to remove the monument, since . That is disputed by activists who feel state law would allow UNC to remove it for preservation.

Silent Sam has stood at the university's McCorkle Place since 1913.

Anonymous group calls for removal of UNC's 'Silent Sam'

The statue was designed by John Wilson and funded by university alumni and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who wanted to erect a memorial in honor of Confederate alumni members who died during the Civil War or joined the Confederate army as Northern and Southern forces fought on the battlefield.

There have been scattered calls to remove the statue over several decades but the movement intensified last year when a rally of white nationalists and supremacists at the University of Virginia turned violent. Participants had gathered there to protest plans to remove a statue of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The violent chaos migrated to other cities, which began having conversations about or actually removing statues of Confederate soldiers.

UNC has no say in removing the statue, but they can request the state Historical Commission to remove the statue.