Roy Williams on 'Silent Sam:' 'I wish it would go away'
Posted December 14, 2018 4:41 p.m. EST
Updated December 14, 2018 5:42 p.m. EST
Chapel Hill, N.C. — On the day in which the divide between University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus leaders and the UNC System's Board of Trustees became more fraught over the fate of the "Silent Sam" statue, the head men's basketball coach left no question about where he stands.
"In my own personal belief, period, I think it would be best for it not to be here," Williams told Inside Carolina on Friday. "I wish it would go away, but I’m sure there are other people that feel that way as well."
Ove the past week, more than 250 current and former student-athletes from UNC, including NBA players Kendall Marshall and Harrison Barnes and several current members of Williams' team, have added their signatures to an open letter to university leaders opposing a plan put forward by the UNC Board of Trustees to build a $5.3 million "center for history and education" to house the controversial Silent Sam statue on campus.
On Friday, the UNC Board of Governors, rejected that plan and said it will take another four months to develop a plan for the future of the statue.
The Silent Sam statue, in honor of UNC's Confederate dead, stood on the campus from its dedication in 1913 until August, when a group decrying its racist history dashed it from a pedestal. Since that time, campus leaders have considered next steps.
In the hours after Chancellor Carol Folt announced a plan to return it to campus in a new building, hundreds of people marched and shouted through the campus, sharing their opposition.
A series of speakers, most of them African-American, blasted what they see as a continuing attitude of tolerance for racism on campus, an attitude they say is exemplified by Silent Sam.
"He is a figment of the white imagination that does not represent history, but propaganda," a first-year student said.
In their letter, the student-athletes wrote, "A monument to those who fought and killed to keep Black people enslaved has no place on our campus.
"As athletes, we recognize division as our worst enemy. In athletics, and in life, success requires unity. Now, more than ever, we are unwilling to tolerate—let alone celebrate—symbols of division."
