PHOENIX — A Phoenix man said he does not regret getting arrested after defacing a monument to Confederate soldiers on the Wesley Bolin Plaza Friday afternoon.
Sean Brennan, 29, said he was 99% sure he would get arrested but felt it was important to make a statement against a monument that has stood for almost 60 years.
“I think it represents racism and represents hatred and a past we shouldn’t be proud of,” Brennan said. "I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the moral thing, it just doesn’t happen to be the legal thing."
Brennan was booked on two criminal charges including one felony.
Around 2 p.m. on Friday, Brennan tossed red paint on the Confederate monument.
The move joins other calls around the nation to remove monuments to the Confederacy.
Brennan said he wanted to take action on Juneteenth, to have a day that is celebrated as the end of slavery to also mark the end of memorializing racism.
“At this point, enough is enough, it’s gotta stop,” Brennan said.
The monument was first erected in the early 1960s. It now sits on the north side of Wesley Bolin plaza, feet away from a smaller memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.
At the monument’s base, a message reads: “a nation that forgets its past has no future.”
Brennan said the particular past the memorial is honoring is better left to history’s pages than etched in stone.
“I understand trying to learn from history, but that’s what history books are for,” Brennan said.
A few weeks ago ,Governor Doug Ducey said he would like a public process on removing monuments from the plaza similar to one that is used to add monuments to the plaza. If any public process will be created is unclear.
