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A Towering Legacy To The Confederacy Topples

WUNC News | By Frank Stasio,

Amanda Magnus

Published August 21, 2018 at 12:58 PM EDT

A demonstrator carries a #DoItLikeDurham sign in Polk Place on August 20th, 2018. Hours later the confederate monument 'Silent Sam' would come down.

A demonstrator carries a #DoItLikeDurham sign in Polk Place on August 20th, 2018. Hours later the confederate monument 'Silent Sam' would come down.

Silent Sam, the controversial confederate monument that stood on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s campus is gone.

Host Frank Stasio speaks with WUNC Managing Editor Dave DeWitt about the toppling of Silent Sam statue on the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Campus.

Demonstrators initially gathered last night in support ofUNC-Chapel Hill graduate student Maya Little who faces criminal charges for defacing the statue. Hours later demonstrators pulled down Silent Sam with ropes as an estimated 250 protesters surrounded the site. Removal crews arrived later to collect the toppled statue using pulleys and a backhoe.

Silent Sam was part of the university's landscape for more than 100 years and has been contentious for decades. Host Frank Stasio speaks with WUNC Managing Editor Dave DeWitt who was at the scene last night.

Copyright 2018 North Carolina Public Radio

Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

See stories by Frank Stasio

Amanda Magnus

Amanda Magnus grew up in Maryland and went to high school in Baltimore. She became interested in radio after an elective course in the NYU journalism department. She got her start at Sirius XM Satellite Radio, but she knew public radio was for her when she interned at WNYC. She later moved to Madison, where she worked at Wisconsin Public Radio for six years. In her time there, she helped create an afternoon drive news magazine show, called Central Time. She also produced several series, including one on Native American life in Wisconsin. She spends her free time running, hiking, and roller skating. She also loves scary movies.

See stories by Amanda Magnus