Vandals Target Confederate Monuments In Half-Dozen States [View all]

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Source: Associated Press

Jun 26, 1:36 AM EDT By JIM SALTER
Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Vandals have targeted monuments dedicated to the leaders and soldiers of the Confederacy, painting the slogan "Black lives matter" on memorials in a half-dozen states where the landmarks stand tall in parks and outside government buildings.

The graffiti reflects the racial tension that permeates post-Ferguson America, more than a week after a white gunman shot and killed nine black congregants at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

Michael Allen, a lecturer in American culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis, compared the vandalism to the toppling of statues in Russia at the end of the Soviet empire.

"If the monuments are strong statements of past values, defacing them is the easiest and loudest way to rebuke those statements," Allen said.

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