Two Monument Stories
There were two news stories this week on the future of Confederate monuments in North Carolina and Alabama.
First, the University of North Carolina ceded the “Silent Sam” monument that had stood on the campus at UNC Chapel Hill to the North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Under the terms of the agreement, the SCV will relocate the monument but not place it in any of the fourteen counties where UNC maintains a campus. In addition, UNC will establish a $2.5M trust fund, the proceeds of which can be used for limited purposes in maintaining the monument at its new location. The trust fund does not use public monies, and I suspect this part of the agreement was influenced by the Vanderbilt case from a few years ago, where that university paid the United Daughters the Confederacy a sum in exchange for removing the Confederate name or one of the buildings on campus.
In Birmingham, city officials had set up a wooden box obscuring a Confederate monument in 2017. After a drawn-out legal battle, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that that violated the terms of a state law that prohibits removal or alteration of monuments and memorials that had been in place for 40 years or more. The state law is one of several passed in recent years that prohibits alterations to monuments, even those (like Birmingham’s) that are on city, not state, property.
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Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog 
At the bottom of the page that comes up with your link:
are two articles; one about the toppling of “Silent Sam” and one about the defacement of a memorial to slaves.
Extremism breeds contempt for others. Vandalism is often a difficult to prosecute crime and I’m not sure if anyone was prosecuted for either of these events. I think that the University’s settlement is a good and fair one that should be applauded. Silent Sam isn’t the Confederate leadership, but one of the followers who were involved for a variety of reasons including coercion.
I’m not sure any of those involved in toppling “Silent Sam” were charged and convicted of that act. One of the leading activists opposing that monument’s presence on the UNC campus has been repeatedly in trouble over her actions.
The UNC monument to slaves vandalism was prosecuted, and the perpetrators convicted. There should have been a sentencing enhancement for aggravated stupidity, because those two are dumber than the proverbial box of rocks. See the fourth graf here, beginning “earlier this year. . . . ”
https://deadconfederates.com/2019/10/03/canister-monumental-edition/
You’re right about this sort of thing being a cycle.