A statue in Charleston, South Carolina depicting former Vice President John C. Calhoun, a longtime defender of slavery, was defaced with “RACIST” on Tuesday, only a few days after someone vandalized a Confederate monument in the city.
The base of the Calhoun statue read “Calhoun, RACIST,” the second word scrawled on in red spray paint, according to local station WCBD.
An inscription further above that originally read, “Truth Justice and the Constitution,” included the words “AND SLAVERY,” also in red paint.
Police were investigating the vandalism and the city has began to scrub the paint off, the station reported.
Calhoun had been a public defender of slavery and a supporter of Southern secession from the United States.
The vandalism appeared in the wake of a mass shooting at the historical black Emanual AME Church on Wednesday. Prosecutors have charged white, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, who appears to have held white supremacist views, with nine murders. The church is located on Calhoun Street in Charleston.
South Carolina’s governor on Monday called for the legislature to vote to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds.
WCSC also reported that on Sunday a Confederate memorial at Charleston’s White Point Garden was covered in similar red paint with phrases such as “Black Lives Matter” and “why defend this evil.”
