Protesters tore down Confederate statue "Silent Sam," but UNC is bringing it back

The controversial Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill — stowed away in an undisclosed location after protesters tore it to the ground a few weeks ago — should have a place on campus, according to the university. It’s just not quite clear where that place is. “Silent Sam has a place in our history and on our campus where its history can be taught, but not at the front door of a safe, welcoming, proudly public research university,” Carol Folt, the university’s chancellor, said in a statement Friday. “We want to provide opportunities for our students and the broader community to reflect upon and learn from that history.

The century-old statue has been the focus of a university controversy since classes started. Hundreds of protesters toppled the monument on Aug. 20, and at least two protests have taken place since that night.

On Thursday, a neo-Confederate group showed up to a heavily-barricaded corner of campus to unfurl the South’s battle flag in front of dancing counterprotesters, who later followed the neo-Confederates to a parking lot. The counterprotesters were pepper-sprayed by police, and three people were arrested.

Read: Neo-Confederate rally for "Silent Sam" ends with pepper spray, arrests

Now it’s up to the university and its Board of Trustees to decide the divisive statue’s fate. The Board of Governors wants the university to come up with some sort of plan to locate a “safe, legal, and alternative location for Silent Sam” by Nov. 15, Folt said.

“It has become apparent to all that the monument, displayed where it was, is extremely divisive and a threat to public safety and the day-to-day mission of the University,” Folt wrote on Friday.

Read: Watch 200 people knock down Confederate monument "Silent Sam"

Cover: Demonstrators rally for the removal of a Confederate statue coined Silent Sam on the campus of the University of Chapel Hill on August 22, 2017, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)