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.”
Why do people of the South feel the need to honor those who defended slavery and supported taking up arms against the United States?
I am not an advocate for ignoring or papering over our nation’s history, but we do need to end honoring and glorifying such people. They do not deserve statues in the public square in this day and age. They need to be relegated to the history books and in the museums as object lessons of how not to act or behave in a civilized society.
Is anyone monitoring the rightwing sites? I have to imagine many are going ultra super mega wizard wacky or are they? I ain’t lookin…
A modest proposal. True, it’s been done before, but this time we’ll get it right.
I dipped my toes into it. You don’t want to go there. I’m guessing that there will be push back from yet-another-racist-psychopath in the days or weeks to come.
Yes, but is the foam heading in any discernible direction, urping up any interesting proper nouns?