Arizona is home to six Confederate monuments, which seems odd for a state that isn’t typically remembered for its allegiance to the separatist cause. While the Western region was claimed by the Confederacy in 1861 and a few battalions of Arizonians did fight on their side in the war, it was only a territory. However, Arizona’s status in the Civil War was irrelevant to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who erected Gold Canyon’s Jefferson Davis Highway monument in 1943
Surfing the righteous wave of Confederate monument destruction moving across the country, an ingenious vandal (or vandals) concocted an extremely appropriate reckoning for the Gold Canyon monument — they tarred and feathered the old thing.
Tarring and feathering has been an instrument of public humiliation since the feudal lords roamed. When flaming hot tar is poured on skin, as tarring and feathering has historically been done, that’s undoubtedly torture. When tar is poured on a monument to white pride, it’s a perfectly acceptable technique to shame the Confederacy’s modern defenders.
Expectedly, the monument’s disfigurement…ruffled…a few…feathers. Some drivers who noticed the once pristine monument to Davis, who was the Confederacy’s first and last president, weren’t pleased with its makeover.
“It is vandalism. This is state property. State property,” one disgruntled, presumably old, man told Fox News 10. “It is vandalism. The state controls this.” Another man applauded the vandal’s ingenuity, but lamented how much it would cost to clean up. Just imagine how much cheaper it would be if authorities simply removed Old Dirty Davis instead of cleaning off the tar.