This story has been updated. 

A Confederate monument in the Decatur Square has been defaced again, this time by someone who added an expletive beneath its inscription.

Reader Chris Billingsley sent in this photo from the monument taken this evening, Sept. 22.

City Manager Peggy Merriss said she wasn’t aware of the latest defacement when contacted by Decaturish, but said she would pass the information along to Decatur Police and DeKalb County, which owns the monument.

Last month, the monument was smeared with feces, and then it was “yarn bombed” ahead of the Decatur Book Festival.

Activists have demanded the monument’s removal in the wake of a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. that resulted in the deaths of three people. Groups calling for the monument’s removal, including the Beacon Hill branch of the NAACP and Hate Free Decatur, have held a rally and a discussion in the city’s downtown to support removing it.

The monument is located by the old DeKalb County courthouse and was constructed in 1908. It is widely seen as a symbol of the Jim Crow era south, a not-so subtle message to black residents who would question the status quo.

Activists protesting the monument recently scored a victory by pressuring the Decatur City Commission to formally call for the monument’s removal. The commission also asked the Legislature to change the state law that prohibits officials from removing it.

Suggestions for its relocation have included moving it to a museum or cemetery.

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