Jefferson Davis Monument Defaced In South Austin

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — A Confederate monument in South Austin was recently defaced with graffiti, according to reports.

A monument honoring Jefferson Davisat 6812 S. Congress Ave. was vandalized after someone spray-painted a communist symbol depicting a red hammer and sickle on its surface. According to waymarking.com, the monument was one of several installed by the United Daughters of Confederacy along various stretches of the so-called “Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway” in the 1930s, KXAN noted in a news report.

Davis was president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865.

The vandalism comes amid a growing backlash against symbols of the Confederacy that suggest approval or glorification of its ideals, including the institution of slavery. Officials at the University of Texas at Austin are among those touched by the controversy, choosing to take down monuments lionizing the Confederacy recently. In 2015, a statue of Davis on campus was relocated from the UT-Austin campus to the Briscoe Center for American History.

Austin ISD officials also are among those wrestling with how best to rid campuses of the vestiges of the slavery era, working to re-name schools named in honor of Confederacy figures.

>>> Image via The New York Public Library Digital Collections