A video of a white woman vandalizing a statue of the only Black member of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition has gone viral.
In the video obtained by KGW, an unidentified white woman can be seen using purple spray paint to deface the statue of York.
York was a slave who made history as the first Black man to cross America and reach the Pacific Coast as part of the Corps of Discovery with explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the early 1800s. Clark was his captor.
According to the white woman, she is a victim of “prejudice against Black and Hispanic people.”
The bust of York replaced a statue of Harvey Scott, who was the longtime editor and owner of the Oregonian newspaper — something the unidentified vandal takes exception to, declaring that replacing the statue of a white man with a Black man is “not unity.”
Scott was brought down by protestors last year. He was a staunch opponent of women’s suffrage.
“It’s love and unity,” the woman says, “not to replace a white man with a f*cking Black man. That’s not f*cking unity.”
An unknown artist erected the bust in Mount Tabor Park in February.
“We should regard this installation for both the important piece that it is,” City Parks Commissioner Carmen Rubio said in a press release at the time, “as well as a much-needed reminder to city leaders to hasten our work of rooting out white supremacy in our institutions—particularly our city government, where many processes exclude community participation and discourage engagement.”
