Confederate monument doused with pink paint in Tennessee

A Confederate monument in Tennessee was doused with pink paint on Tuesday night, the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal reported.

The statue, outside the Historic Rutherford County Courthouse, was spray-painted pink around 10:23 p.m., according to police spokesman Larry Flowers. 

Flowers told the outlet that police are investigating the vandalism.

The words “coward,” “murderer,” and “Ft. Pillow,” were also written on the monument.{mosads}

The memorial depicts a Confederate soldier known locally by the nickname “Johnny Reb,” according to the newspaper.

It was erected to commemorate the Southern soldiers who died in the Battle of Stones River from Dec. 31, 1862 to Jan. 2, 1863.

“A monument for our soldiers, built of a people’s love,” it reads.

The paint was removed quickly by city crews on Wednesday, but the outlet noted that this wasn’t the first time a Civil War-era monument in the area has been painted pink.

A statute of Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest was painted pink in December 2017.

The owner of the statue, which is located on private property, said at the time that he would keep the paint up to draw more attention to the sculpture, telling the newspaper that the coat of pink paint would “show up real good.”