With the violence taking place in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend the impact was felt nationwide, but the reverberations were also felt on the local level, including a town about three hours away: Portsmouth. It’s there a citizen by the name of Nathan Coflin is looking to take action against the white supremacists who protested in Charlottesville, petitioning to get a Confederate monument taken down in Portsmouth and replaced with one world renown native of the small town along the Atlantic Ocean.
“The Confederate Monument in Olde Towne Portsmouth Virginia near the intersection of Court and High streets with a new statue of a true Portsmouth native hero,” the Change.org petition says. “Who better to encapsulate the culture and spirit of the city enshrined in a new monument than Grammy Award winning rapper, dancer, and record producer Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott?”
Yes, Coflin wants to erect a statue of the one and only Missy Elliot in Portsmouth in place of the Confederate statue in the town and he’s close to the 7,500 signatures he’s seeking for the petition. “Missy is all of us,” the petition says. “Missy is everything the Confederacy was not.”
Coflin plans to take the petition to the City of Portsmouth’s Mayor John L. Rowe, the Vice Mayor of Portsmouth Paige Cherry and several councilmen and councilwomen.
