Tattoo artists in Kentucky are giving people the chance to erase their past mistakes for free.
Gallery X Art Collective in Murray is part of the the Cover The Hate campaign. It started last summer when shop owners posted a message on Instagram saying "If you have a racist tattoo and want it gone, I'll cover it for free. No questions asked. I choose the design. Let's get that s**t off your body."
"We had hundreds and hundreds of likes, hundreds and hundreds of shares," artist Ryun King told Fox News.
King and his colleagues got the idea as racial tensions and protests took off around the start of the pandemic.
“I just wanted to help out in someway. It’s the only platform I have,” artist Jeremiah Swift told KFVS.
For those who request cover ups, their tattoos usually represent a part of their life that they left behind.
"I've had a father that told me that he didn't take [his] shirt off in front of his kids ever … because of some mistake he made when he was in his early 20s in prison and got in with the wrong crowd," King told Fox.
Most of the tattoos King sees were done at home or in prison. He's gotten rid of a number of swastikas, SS bolts, and Confederate flags.
"I don't think I've ever heard anyone go … ‘I generally hated this race. It was always like ‘I felt pressured into this' … or ‘I thought I was going to die in prison,"" he said.
The first person to get one of these cover ups was a woman who got a Confederate flag on her ankle when she was 18 to rebel against her father and fit in. She replaced it with a character from Rick and Morty.
The original Instagram post generated so much attention that King said his wait list is years long. He has since recruited other tattoo parlors to help out.
Photo: Getty Images