*Apparently it’s tit for tat time for some “WLM/White Lives Matter” proponents who went and vandalized the statue of an African American sports hero, Arthur Ashe.
The base of the Richmond, VA monument was tagged with white spray paint and the words “White Lives Matter” in addition to the initials “WLM.”
Red counter-graffiti reading “BLM,” shorthand for “Black Lives Matter” later covered the “WLM” tags.
The tagging of the Ashe statue on Wednesday follows the removal and defacing of other city monuments in recent weeks — mostly tributes to the Confederacy — by people protesting racial injustice and police brutality. Woven into those collective actions is a belief that property matters less than human rights.
Police said they have information on possible suspects and are asking the community to call their Crime Stoppers line if they have information on who is responsible for the vandalism.
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?BREAKING: Someone spray-painted “WLM,” on the Arthur Ashe statue, “BLM” was painted over it.
Ashe, a tennis legend & Richmond native, has the only African American statue on Monument Avenue, amongst the other 5 Confederate leaders. pic.twitter.com/eADAGknL0S
— Anthony Antoine (@AnthonyNBC12) June 17, 2020
The Arthur Ashe monument was dedicated in 1996 to commemorate the Richmond native and counterbalance the string of statues on Memorial Avenue dedicated to Confederate leaders.
Ashe was the first black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team and the first black man ever to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open.
Ashe is believed to have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion in the early 1980s. He founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health before his death from AIDS-related pneumonia on February 6, 1993 at 49.
He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton on June 20, 1993.
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