Tattoo artists covering up clients’ racist tattoos for free. ‘Helping to fix the past’

Dickie Marcum was 19 when he got a swastika tattooed on his chest, he told WLWT.

“I had a lot of hate in my heart from all the way as a small child,” he said, according to the outlet. “There were certain things that were OK in my house. And I’m not blaming my parents, because I have my own mind. I could have grown up and realized, but I never allowed that to happen.”

When he found out he was going to be a father several years ago, he got an X tattooed over the swastika, according to WXIX.

“I didn’t want to raise my kids around hate or intolerance,” Marcum, 34, told the outlet. “They don’t deserve that, and a lot of that stuff is taught at a very young age. They needed a chance.”

It’s been 15 years since Marcum got the swastika tattoo, calling the ink a shameful reminder of the man he used to be, WLWT reported.

He decided he wanted it gone completely. On Juneteenth, Marcum visited Silkworm Tattoo near his home in Ohio where he heard they were offering free cover ups of racist images, WLWT reported. Now the swastika is covered by a large rose.

“The second I saw it, I felt free,” he told the outlet. “It was so overwhelming, I cried in front of two men I didn’t know.”

The artists at Silkworn Tattoo are part of a growing movement of tattooers offering their services free of charge to those who want to cover up racist and hateful tattoos.

‘Full of emotions’

In Murray, Kentucky, Jeremiah Swift and Ryun King were two of the first tattoo artists to make news with their offer of free cover ups, announcing in a Facebook post that they wanted to “get that sh-- off your body.”

“Having anything hate related is completely unacceptable,” King told CNN. “A lot of people when they were younger just didn’t know any better and were left with mistakes on their bodies. We just want to make sure everybody has a chance to change.”

In two weeks, the artists received more than 30 requests for cover ups, according to the outlet.

“One of the people we got was a man with both of his forearms completely covered in hate symbols, absolutely everywhere,” King told CNN. “How is this man going to interact with society with the mistakes he made 10, 15, 20 years ago?”

He said another client had a giant swastika tattoo and refused to let his kids see him without his shirt on, according to the outlet.

“I like seeing that,” King told CNN. “I like seeing people want to change themselves for the better. That swells me full of emotions.”

Jennifer Tucker is a 36-year-old mother of two and was King’s first client, according to the outlet. She wanted to get a small Confederate flag tattoo covered on her ankle.

“I just needed to get that symbol of hatred off of my body,” she told CNN. “Every time I attend a group meeting or protest, I make a new friend. And I don’t want to be standing next to them with a Confederate flag on my leg.”

King covered the flag with an image of Pickle Rick from the television show “Rick and Morty,” CNN reported.

‘If you want change, it starts with yourself’

Esmailin Sanchez, a 35-year-old tattoo artist in Old Bridge, New Jersey, and said he’s received 10 cover-up requests since announcing his offer on social media just over a week ago, NJ.com reported.

Typically, his cover ups cost between $250 and $300 an hour, according to the outlet.

“It’s my contribution to making the world better. If you want change, it starts with yourself,” he told NJ.com.

Sanchez, who co-owns Chakra Tattoos with his wife, has covered a Confederate flag with a woman’s face and a swastika with colorful nebulas, according to the outlet. He’s also turned the word “skinhead” into a skull, he said.

“I’m sitting in front of someone who was actually racist,” he told NJ.com. “But I feel like I’m helping to fix the past every time I do a cover-up.”

Sanchez said most of his cover-up clients say they didn’t interact with people of color growing up, learning racism in their insular communities, according to the outlet, changing their minds once they met people of different races at work or school.

Most parlors refuse to ink a racist or hateful symbol on someone; many of Sanchez’s cover-up clients told him a friend initially tattooed them, NJ.com reported.

‘I can’t judge it’

In Maryville, Tennessee, tattoo artist Jenni Rivera said she received upwards of 300 cover up requests in 4 days — nearly a year’s worth of appointments, The Daily Times reported.

“I didn’t really realize there would be as many of these tattoos to cover,” she told the newspaper.

Clients send Rivera a photo of the tattoo they want covered then they discuss the cover-up together, according to The Daily Times.

“What I didn’t realize is that the people who get these tattoos often don’t get them discreetly, so they’re going to be huge coverups,” she told the newspaper.

Rivera said she has a no-questions-asked policy when people come in for cover ups, and clients often tell her they didn’t intend for their tattoos to be racist, the Times reported.

“I can’t judge it,” she told the newspaper. “I prefer not to hear their back stories because I don’t want to choose whether I believe them or not. I just want to fix the tattoo.”

A garden rose

Richard Holt is a tattoo artist at Evil Twins Piercing Studio in Evansville and has been doing cover ups for 16 years, WEHT reported. As protests began after the death of George Floyd, he decided to offer his services for free.

In just a week, he inked 20 cover ups, the outlet reported.

“I’ve got people booked right now for just ‘White Pride’ across their shoulders and all kinds of stuff,” Holt told WEHT.

He also turned a Confederate flag into a rose for a woman who said she got the tattoo, which was meant to symbolize her now ex-husband’s wrestling uniform, when she was 19, according to the outlet.

Holt covered it with a rose because she’s taken up gardening during the pandemic, WEHT reported.

“Thank you is not strong enough,” the woman told the outlet. “There is no word strong enough really. You’re giving me a new chance.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Tattoo artists covering up clients’ racist tattoos for free. ‘Helping to fix the past’."