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About 300 demonstrators gathered at the base of Silent Sam, a
memorial to the Confederate soldiers killed during the Civil
War, at about 7 p.m. (2300 GMT) to hold a protest and march.
About two hours later, the statue, which had been standing on
the Chapel Hill campus since 1913, was on the ground, local
media reported.
Protesters pulled the statue with rope and threw dirt on it,
local media reported. The statue was face down in the mud with
dirt on the back of its head and its back, according to a
Reuters eyewitness.
"Tonight's actions were dangerous, and we are very fortunate
that no one was injured," the school said in a statement posted
on Twitter. "We are investigating the vandalism and assessing
the full extent of the damage."
The efforts by civil rights groups and others to do away with
Confederate monuments such as Silent Sam gained momentum three
years ago after avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered
nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South
Carolina. The shooting rampage ultimately led to the removal of
a Confederate flag from the statehouse in Columbia.
Since then, more than 110 symbols of the Confederacy have been
removed across the nation with more than 1,700 still standing,
according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Many Americans see such statues as symbols of racism and
glorifications of the southern states' defense of slavery in the
Civil War, but others view them as important symbols of American
history.
(Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing
by Christian Schmollinger)
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