A statue in Charleston memorializing Confederate soldiers was vandalized Sunday with two messages in spray paint — “Black lives matter,” and “This is the problem #racist.”
Those messages were painted onto the base of a statue dedicated to “the Confederate Defenders of Charleston — Fort Sumter.” The United Daughters of the Confederacy had placed the statue.
The police were notified of the damage shortly after 12:30 p.m. Sunday, and the damage was covered up by residents around 1:30 p.m. when they wrapped a tarp around the base of the statue.
Even after the graffiti was covered, someone put two signs on top of the tarp, one reading “All lives matter #charlestonunited” and the other reading “Take down racist statues,” according to the Post and Courier.
The vandalism followed the murder of nine black church members at an historically black church in Charleston. After attending a bible study for about an hour, Dylann Roof allegedly stood up and opened fire on the attendees. Roof has been arrested and charged as the primary suspect in this case, and he confessed to police, according to Hot Air.
The shooting has spurred a movement aimed at getting South Carolina to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds. In Columbia, a thousand people came together demanding the removal, and petitions have also began circling.
