It’s easy to miss the graffiti on the side of the Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea statue. You have to be pretty close to even see it—a jagged black box with lines fanning off the top that brings Chinese characters to mind.
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Still, it’s there, and it’s been there since 2004, when a tagger spraypainted what Charlottesville spokesperson Ric Barrick describes as a "peace sign" onto the granite just below a crouching Sacagawea. Regardless of any social or artistic criticisms the statue has received, it seems odd that the mark still remains on one of Charlottesville’s most visible historical monuments. So what’s it still doing there?
It’s not so much a problem of budget or bureaucracy. Barrick says there had actually been a previous attempt to remove the graffiti shortly after it was reported in 2004, though a variety of chemical solutions were unsuccessful. City maintenance workers faced a challenge: How to remove paint from the statue’s porous granite surface without marring it for good?
"We have taken every measure that we can without damaging the statue," says Mike Svetz, the director of the Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department. The city went as far as sandblasting in 2005, according to Barrick, without luck.
The city hasn’t given up hope. Svetz says that property maintenance crews will try removing the graffiti again this fall with a new batch of chemical solutions and more sandblasting if necessary.
While it’s apparent that the city wants to see its statue restored, this isn’t the first time that graffiti has struck this monument, or its confederate cousin, Robert E. Lee, whose figure adorns Lee Park. Even though these sites are the occasional victims of vandalism, the political commentary behind these acts is not always well established. As with the Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea statue, Barrick says that the city "did not locate the person who damaged the statue and cannot determine why or if it was targeted."
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