Jefferson Davis statue on Monument Avenue vandalized

A crew with the Richmond Public Works Department power-washed the graffiti shortly before 11 a.m., but that only made the paint a shade lighter. The words remained visible from dozens of yards away.

Professional contractors likely will be hired to finish the job, said Public Works spokeswoman Sharon North, adding that the department did as much as possible without damaging the monument, while specialists will be able use more advanced techniques, such as chemical solutions and sandblasting.

With anti-Confederate sentiment intensifying throughout the country in the wake of the apparently racially motivated killing of nine black people in a South Carolina church, it was perhaps inevitable that the dispute over Confederate symbols would make its way to Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy.

Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America, is buried in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery, just miles from the vandalized statue.

Several people stopped at the statue throughout the day Thursday to take photos and observe the mix of onlookers, police and media.

“It’s just adding to the problem,” Louis Simpson, 24, said of the growing spectacle Thursday morning as he headed to work at the nearby Virginia Center for Architecture.

After hearing the news, the group Virginia Flaggers urged its members to head to the statue. They had hoisted about a half-dozen Confederate flags in a nearby median by early afternoon, prompting passing motorists to honk and yell both encouragement and epithets.

“It’s a disappointment,” Flagger Barry Isenhour said of the vandalism. He said the act was disrespectful to America and veterans of the Civil War, regardless of the message that was painted on the monument.

“I wouldn’t have cared if it said Jefferson Davis is the best guy in the world. You don’t deface a public monument,” Isenhour said.

Other observers said they sympathized with the “Black Lives Matter” message, which proliferated this year and last after several highly publicized killings of unarmed black men at the hands of police, but they did not agree with defacing monuments.

A group of Virginia Commonwealth University students questioned why the Flaggers felt the need to show up with their flags, which the students called racist and rude.

“You know what it means,” Justin Parker, a 20-year-old student, said of the Confederate flag.

While debating a few people who questioned their activities, the Flaggers said they oppose racism and just want to honor Confederate veterans.

Several police officers patrolled the area periodically Thursday morning .

The statue at Monument and Davis avenues features a semicircle of 13 columns representing the 11 states that seceded during the Civil War and the two states that participated in the Confederate Congress. A bronze figure of Davis stands atop a 12-foot pedestal. “Vindicatrix,” an allegorical figure of the South, stands on a 67-foot column.

The statue was unveiled in the summer of 1907, drawing an estimated crowd of 100,000 on the final day of a Confederate reunion.

Monument Avenue, a National Historic Landmark District, features statues of other Confederate leaders — Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Those monuments appeared untouched Thursday, but there have been past incidents of vandalism to the statues.

Last year, the Stuart statue was painted with a cryptic anti-work message, accompanied by what appeared to be a Soviet hammer and sickle. In 2012, the Lee statue was defaced with “five-O.”

Monument Avenue also features a statue of African-American tennis star Arthur Ashe.

The Davis statue is slated to serve as a key turnaround point in the international bicycling race coming to the city in September. A local activist group has called on officials to change the race route for the UCI Road World Championships to avoid highlighting the Confederate monuments.

Richmond police are asking that anyone with information about the vandalism of the Jefferson Davis monument call Crime Stoppers anonymously at (804) 780-1000.

The Flaggers said Thursday afternoon that they had collected $1,500 that they would give to anyone who provides a tip that leads to an arrest.