Historic Black School in Virginia Vandalized with ‘White Power’ Graffiti

A 19th-century building that once served as a school for black students in Ashburn, Va. was spray painted with vulgar images and white power messages, dealing a major blow to a project to restore it.

The Loudoun School for the Gifted has been working on restoring the building known as the Ashburn Colored School in an effort to help its students learn about their history, while also doing some good in the community. But on Saturday, the restoration project shared images of the shack covered in red, blue and black spray-painted messages of “white power” and images of male and female genitals. According to the project’s Facebook page, they’d recently installed new windows to the building when the vandalism was discovered.

According to Washington’s WJLA, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department is currently investigating the case while the school is continuing its work to restore the school. The school has been asking for donations to its GoFundMe in order to speed the process along; over the weekend, donations poured in to the site, Loudoun Now reports, with $15,005 raised by 1:30p.m. on Saturday. As of Monday morning, $48,000 has been raised to restore the school.