The divide over statues and monuments in Charlottesville, Va., appears far from over.
Just one month after a demonstration over plans to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee turned violent, resulting in a woman's death, a different group of protesters has targeted a statue of U.S. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson.
The Thomas Jefferson Monument, which sits just outside a rotunda at the University of Virginia -- which Jefferson also founded -- was cloaked in black Tuesday evening, and adorned with signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “TJ is a racist,” local media reported.
Nearly 100 students came together to deface the statue, chanting, “No Trump, No KKK, no racist U-V-A,” the Washington Times reported.
“One month ago, we stood on the front lines in downtown Charlottesville as all manner of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and neo-fascists swarmed the area,” a speaker told the crowd, the Daily Progress reported. “Two months ago, the Ku Klux Klan rallied in their safe space, fully robed and fully protected by multiple law enforcement agencies who brutalized and tear-gassed peaceful counter-protesters.”
Tuesday evening’s rally was in response to the university denying demands made last month by the Black Student Alliance, which included banning white supremacists from campus and removing Confederate plaques on the rotunda, the Daily Progress reported.
“We can and must condemn the violence of one month ago and simultaneously recognize Jefferson as a rapist, racist, and slave owner,” the unidentified speaker said, the website reported. “The visibility of physical violence from white supremacists should not take our attention away from condemning and disrupting more ‘respectable’ racists that continue to control the structures that perpetuate institutional racism.”
The university did not immediately comment on the Jefferson statue shrouding, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. No police officers were seen at Tuesday's protest, according to the newspaper.
There are 718 confederate statues and monuments in the United States, 300 of which are displayed in Georgia, Virginia, or North Carolina, a 2016 study by the Southern Poverty Law Center says.