Confederate Monuments

It is an indisputable fact, Lake County with a history of the Groveland Four and reign of Willis V. McCall, has one of the darkest, cruelest most racist histories in the state of Florida. Yet the decision to go after the confederate statue was never discussed in community to determine if taxpaying citizens wanted it here.The effort  was initially through secretive,  “back-channel” efforts.  Without one open, informed, transparent  community conversation, the decision made to “go after the statue”.  It is an outrage to all and an affront to the African American community. The divisiveness, pain and anger had to be anticipated. No part of the community should bear the burden of such pain for the edification of others.  If we allow this to happen...what will be next?  We do not want to live in the shadow of a monument paid for by confederate veterans and intended to be a visible, tangible expression commemorating white supremacy.

Jefferson Davis was hailed as the “champion of a slave society” when he was selected in 1861 to become President of the Confederate States of America. Davis was an unrepentant white supremacist who fervently believed the Southern cause, slavery and segregation were right and just until his last dying breath in 1889. It is therefore outrageous that a major Virginia thoroughfare, Jefferson Davis Highway (aka Route 1) which abuts the Pentagon and other US Capital landmarks continues to bear the name of a morally depraved, non-Virginian who rejected the very idea of a United States.   The back-story of the decision in 1920 to name southern sections of Route 1 after Davis adds to the disturbing legacy of racism in America. At that time, the Daughters of the Confederacy along with US Rep. Earl B. Mayfield of Texas, a close ally of the Ku Klux Klan, began a campaign to attach the name of the Confederate president to Southern roads in a futile attempt to create a transcontinental highway bearing his name. At the height of the Jim Crow era, when lynching of Southern blacks was conducted with regularity and impunity, these advocates of white domination routed a road symbolizing black oppression and enslavement across several predominately black neighborhoods, as if to reinforce the message of racial subjugation. The choice of name is, therefore, an affront to African-Americans and, indeed, all Americans who are repulsed by the evils of slavery, segregation and racism. It's time for the Commonwealth of Virginia, to remove the name of this Confederate leader from all sections of Route 1 in Virginia. Virginia is a state that prides itself on its diversity, technological innovation, leadership in education and progress. The name Jefferson Davis is far from what the state should honor. Let's stop indulging the race haters who named the road after their race hating hero. Let’s change the image of this important roadway from hatred and rename it to memorialize hope and progress. Please sign this petition calling on Governor Terry McAulliffe, the Virginia General Assembly and the Commonwealth Transportation Board to rename  all sections of Jefferson Davis Highway.  

Maya Little faces potential expulsion for an act of civil disobedience against a Confederate statue. We support the statement below, and we petition the UNC Honor Court to drop the charges against her. Maya’s statement: On June 4, the UNC Office of Student Conduct officially charged me with violating the honor code by “stealing, destroying, or misusing property.” My Honor Court hearing may very well coincide with the criminal trial I already face for spilling red ink and my blood on Silent Sam. The Honor Court will determine whether my protest against Confederate monuments is conduct unbecoming of a UNC affiliate. I can find no record of the Honor Court charging students for painting Silent Sam Carolina blue in 1982. But Daily Tar Heel records confirm that neither campus nor Chapel Hill police made any effort to arrest those students. Similarly, the paper reported that NC State students who painted Sam in 1974 were released by campus police without charges. At UNC, dousing the monument in paint in the name of basketball is deemed a pastime while doing the same to contextualize and fight racism is a crime. Revealing the racist violence upon which Sam was built -- exposing a truth the university would like to keep covered -- could result in my expulsion. UNC uses its disciplinary boards to punish political activism and its police to suppress free speech. Chancellor Folt and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus Safety and Risk Management, Derek Kemp, appointed an undercover police officer to infiltrate our movement and lie to and gather information on students fighting against racism. Why was it necessary to use tactics designed to entrap and engender mistrust among us? Perhaps because they are longstanding tactics of UNC administrators targeting anti-racist activists. Kemp and Folt carry on a practice that can be traced to campus police collusion with the FBI to spy on Black Student Movement (BSM) members in the 1970s. It is likely that black students protesting the 1971 murder of James Cates by a white motorcycle gang in the Pit were also targets of this surveillance.  This spring, Silent Sam protesters created a series of historical markers to educate the public about Cates’s murder and the untold history of white supremacy at UNC. When UNC police ripped apart these markers on April 30, 2018, they destroyed the only memorials to Cates that existed on our campus. The Honor Court, Board of Trustees, and Faculty Council have stood by idly as members of campus police, Derek Kemp, and Chancellor Folt continue to violate our First Amendment rights. How long will students be punished for demanding that black lives matter at UNC? In 2015, another activist wrote “Who Is Sandra Bland?” on Silent Sam. It was a fitting addition to a statue christened by boasts about horsewhipping a black woman who had sought safety on university grounds. Not only did UNC fail to protect her, it bestowed an honorary degree upon her attacker, Julian Carr. To this day, he holds that honorific. He is memorialized  in the names of a building I have taught in and the town that I live in.  Those who speak up are silenced and targeted, but violence against people of color and women goes unpunished. That violence is then celebrated in the protection of monuments such as Silent Sam, Aycock Hall, and plaques to families including the Kenans, who built their wealth on enslaved black labor. These are the crimes I hoped to expose when I poured my own blood on Silent Sam. Now I ask, how will UNC’s Honor Court act? Will they preserve what Dr. King called “a negative peace, which is the absence of tension,” or will they stand for the rights of their peers fighting for racial equality? It is time to truly uphold lux libertas, light and freedom, at UNC. Chancellor Folt, the Board of Governors, and Margaret Spellings have already shown their opposition to both. The student representatives of the Honor Court have chosen to investigate me, but they can still take this opportunity to act for free speech -- and against white supremacy.   The students of the Silent Sam Sit-In ask that the UNC Honor Court drop all charges against me for my protest of Silent Sam on April 30.   We ask that the proper disciplinary boards formally consider charges against university officials responsible for the continued surveillance and suppression of activists involved with protests against racist monuments.   We ask supporters to contact the Director of the Office of Student Conduct, Aisha Pridgen, at apridgen@email.unc.edu and Graduate and Professional School Student Attorney General, Courtney Bain, at cbain@live.unc.edu to ask the Court to drop the charges against me. We ask our supporters to demand an investigation by the Faculty Council of UNC Police, Derek Kemp, and Carol Folt for the undercover infiltration of our protest and the destruction of our signs. These actions constitute harassment, retribution, and silencing. We ask our supporters to sign and circulate this petition demanding the Honor Court drop charges against me for my April 30th action. As always, we ask our alumni supporters to withhold donations to the university until it removes Silent Sam and white supremacy from our campus. I hope to see you all on August 20 at my criminal trial on a misdemeanor charge for which I could possibly spend 60 days in jail. In the face of these betrayals by officials tasked to protect us, we support each other. When one acts, we act together.   Maya Little, on behalf of the Silent Sam Sit In, UNC Student and Graduate Worker 6/14/2018

Dear Henry McMaster, our south Carolina governor, please stop the South Carolina confederate holiday overtime and holiday pay because it's not what state workers and business want.   and we don't celebrate it.  Can we observe it ? employees and citizens and businesses don't want a bill or holiday pay for confederate memorial day.  Some of us work for this state.  Most of us live in this state.  OUR OPINION MATTERS.  We should stop billing businesses on the confederate holiday.  We should stop charging overtime on a confederate holiday.  Can we honorably recognized the civil war without causing pro confederate agendas?   We should not make everyone celebrate a confederate holiday that is involved with South Carolina.   We support a community day where we clean up road trash, clean up family graves or forgotten soldier graves, or help our community by showing no divisions and that we are American. We love one another. We all lost family in the civil war. We gained unity, freedom and humanity. Lets stop building divisions.   Lets stop  making everyone celebrate a confederate holiday.  Make it observed or make a change?  I live in this state and I care. I will not celebrate a confederate holiday. This is the United States of America and charging overtime is not appropriate. We can observe it and remember without overtime. note:  Memorial day was started by freed slaves in Charleston sc.  Celebrate unity.  A confederate holiday should not be billed to us or my friends or my neighbors.