NAACP boxes off statue of Washington--or did they?

Based on what you know about U.S. society, decide if the following story is true.

Yesterday, on the day commemorating ML king, in Columbia, South Carolina the NAACP held a rally on the steps of the state capitol.

As it happens, there is a statue of a fellow by the name of "George Washington" more or less in the center of those steps.

The rally's organizers put the platform for the speakers and dignitaries on the steps.

The organizers built a black box around three sides of Washington's statue, walling it off from the crowd's line of sight. According to NAACP spokesmen this was not intended as an insult to Washington.

A picture of this odd 3-sided black box was posted by various bloggers on the net. At that point several commenters suggested that the story might be false, and the photo posted on various blogs simply a photoshop crafted by RightWingExtremists to arouse the tea partiers.

What do you think?

The link in the first 'graf above takes you to the website of the Columbia, S.C. paper, where you'll see a wide-angle picture of the rally. You can zoom in and pan around. See what you find.

If conservatives or tea partiers boxed up a statue of Dr. King or some other hugely important black figure, it would be front-page news on the NYT and WaPo for days.

Let's see what happens with this story.

I'll go out on a limb and predict you won't see a word of it in the NYT or WaPo or LAT.

Cuz after all, it's so over-the-top that it simply has to be a photoshop job.

Just like the shooter in Arizona was a rightwing nutjob. Yeh, dat's da ticket.