CHARLESTON, S.C. – A mural honoring the nine black parishioners fatally shot at a South Carolina church has been defaced.
Redux Contemporary Art Center says on its Facebook page that the downtown Charleston mural was defaced late Saturday or early Sunday. Images posted online show graffiti-style words and images covering an edge of the multicolored painting.
The mural by artist Tripp Derrick Barnes was unveiled in May on the side of a building just blocks from Emanuel AME Church. It shows a portrait of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, church pastor and one of the victims, against a background of rainbow colors.
There's also a palmetto tree with nine doves ascending into the sky, an image that's come to represent the June 2015 shooting victims.
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