Excerpt Description: Taylor Webber-Fields explains that the Real Silent Sam Coalition was significant in that the organization created a model for a new kind of Tar Heel, which did not support the University without critical thought.
Excerpt Transcript: “So I’m like on this path, was having some really deep reflections about what it meant for me to be on this campus and to be learning African-American Studies on this predominantly white campus. And then, you know, the first Webber to come through there comes out a lawyer, who am I going to be when I come through here? And I never really aspired to be a lawyer, but I knew I had to—I don’t know, it always felt like this is my school too. And how dare I get here and you basically tell me that it’s not? Or this culture try to tell me that this is not my school too? I was like, okay, maybe I don’t rah-rah-rah Tar Heel, maybe I don’t rock Tar Heel blue. To this day, I tell people I’m the worst Tar Heel, like you would never know I graduated from UNC. Because I’m a Tar Heel, like I think a lot of what we did was creating a new Tar Heel. There are so many alternatives to what a Tar Heel can be. And here’s the Tar Heels they don’t want you to know about. They don’t want you to know about the rowdy student activists, but that is absolutely an option when you come on this campus. I think they just sold this image. I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to fit in on this campus, because I’m so not that! I’m so not that. And that’s why this affinity with [Real] Silent Sam—like I am that, I can get down with that.”
Excerpt Description: Taylor Webber-Fields explains that the Real Silent Sam Coalition was significant in that the organization created a model for a new kind of Tar Heel, which did not support the University without critical thought.
Interviewee Name: Taylor Webber-Fields
Interviewer: Charlotte Fryar
Excerpt Transcript: “So I’m like on this path, was having some really deep reflections about what it meant for me to be on this campus and to be learning African-American Studies on this predominantly white campus. And then, you know, the first Webber to come through there comes out a lawyer, who am I going to be when I come through here? And I never really aspired to be a lawyer, but I knew I had to—I don’t know, it always felt like this is my school too. And how dare I get here and you basically tell me that it’s not? Or this culture try to tell me that this is not my school too? I was like, okay, maybe I don’t rah-rah-rah Tar Heel, maybe I don’t rock Tar Heel blue. To this day, I tell people I’m the worst Tar Heel, like you would never know I graduated from UNC. Because I’m a Tar Heel, like I think a lot of what we did was creating a new Tar Heel. There are so many alternatives to what a Tar Heel can be. And here’s the Tar Heels they don’t want you to know about. They don’t want you to know about the rowdy student activists, but that is absolutely an option when you come on this campus. I think they just sold this image. I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to fit in on this campus, because I’m so not that! I’m so not that. And that’s why this affinity with [Real] Silent Sam—like I am that, I can get down with that.”
Organization: Real Silent Sam Coalition
Excerpt Length: 1:29
Interview Date: 11/29/2017
Interview Location: Durham, North Carolina
Campus Space: Saunders Hall
Citation: Interview with Taylor Webber-Fields by Charlotte Fryar, 29 November 2017, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.