The Center for Civil and Human Rights displays images and information from the civil rights era, including Martin Luther King, left, in Atlanta, Georgia. Picture: REUTERS / TAMI CHAPPELL
The Unsung Founders’ Memorial, erected in 2005 at UNC’s flagship campus, was vandalised at about 1.30am on March 31 by two people, including one with ties to a group called Heirs to the Confederacy, the university police said. Media outlets, including news website Chapelboro.com, said Nancy McCorkle, 50, of Newberry, South Carolina, and Ryan Barnett, 31, of Sanford, North Carolina, were arrested on misdemeanour charges of vandalism and ethnic intimidation, and released on bail.
In a statement after the vandalism, the university’s interim chancellor, Kevin Guskiewicz, said the individuals wrote “racist and other deplorable language” on the monument.
Wish the police in S.A would arrest those that deface our monuments!