Act Now

If Chancellor Carol Folt needed a swan song, she got it Sunday night at the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Dinner.

Folt, who had long spoken up about her desire to relocate Silent Sam but early on had been tentative about acting on it, had recently come into her own, right before our eyes. Last week, she announced simultaneously that she planned to retire after graduation in May and that it was within her purview to remove the base of the Confederate statue. That night, under cover of construction workers digging trenches for underground cable, she brought in heavy equipment and a crew who whisked away all remaining traces of Silent Sam.

By morning, a grounds crew was filling in the hole and laying sod. A surprised Board of Governors took umbrage and gave her two weeks’ notice.

At a dinner celebrating King’s legacy of simple actions that had profound impact, Folt was something of a hero. As she walked to the lectern, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. In her short remarks, she didn’t mention removing the vestiges of the statue that had caused pain particularly to many African-Americans. But the audience recognized that her actions, done without fanfare though she must have known it would cost her her job, took a moral courage that she had been reluctant to tap into previously.

All of the speakers at the dinner inspired the crowd in one way or another to go forth and do the right thing. Their own lives served as testament. Honorees included UNC’s former vice chancellor of student affairs Winston Crisp, whose social justice initiatives would fill up the page; and Adam Stein, who, with Julius Chambers and others formed the first integrated law firm in the South.

Sonny Kelly performed a moving soliloquy from his show The Talk, which he will showcase at the Historic Playmakers Theater on campus Feb. 14-17, https://comm.unc.edu/event/the-talk-historic-playmakers-theatre-unc-campus/2019-02-14/. Reginald Hildebrand, a retired professor of African-American studies and history, delivered a passionate and insightful keynote address.

Folt will have other opportunities ahead of her. We do, too. All of us can find occasions to do the right thing, to speak up, to stand firm, to say yes to a more equitable world by saying no to injustice. We can do it now, long before our own swan song.

— Nancy Oates