A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate student says she used her own blood and jugs of ink to paint a Confederate monument on campus red.
A small group of demonstrators gathered Monday afternoon at the statue known as Silent Sam.
Activists have defaced the monument several times before in an attempt to push administrators to take it down. Chancellor Carol Folt has said a state law prevents her from removing it from McCorkle Place.
In a statement directed at Folt, PhD student Maya Little identified herself as the person who spread her own blood and ink on the monument.
Little said the act was meant to contextualize the statue, which protesters have said is inextricably tied to slavery and racism.
"Chancellor Folt, if you refuse to remove the statue, then we will continue to contextualize it," the statement said. "Silent Sam is violence; Silent Sam is the genocide of black people; Silent Sam is antithetical to our right to exist. You should see him the way that we do, at the forefront of our campus covered in our blood."
Fellow students posted photos and videos to social media that show Little's hand wrapped in a bandage as she pours paint on the base of Silent Sam. Moments later, police arrest Little, whose black clothes are covered in red.
