It’s been a bit since mayoral candidates have mentioned the controversial idea of removing statues of confederate heroes from RVA’s iconic Monument Ave, but former Delegate Joe Morrissey has just made it a key to his campaign platform.
It’s been a bit since mayoral candidates have mentioned the controversial idea of removing statues of confederate heroes from RVA’s iconic Monument Ave, but former Delegate Joe Morrissey has just made it a key to his campaign platform.
“Richmonders past erected these statues for generals, and in this case, a politician,” he said standing in front the 111-year-old monument of Confederate President Jefferson Davis sculpted by Richmond-native sculptor Edward Valentine. “This is a political statue that glorified a failed political organization and espoused and championed a cause, slavery, that now Americans now find abhorrent.”
Morrissey’s plan to remove monuments deals only with Davis’, not the rest, because Davis, who was born in 1808 in Fairview, KY, is the only not-Virginia born confederate along the several-mile stretch of road.
“To glorify a general who wore the cloth of Virginia, who fought on a Virginia battlefield, who was born in Virginia, is one thing,” he said. “But to glorify a politician whose principal cause was the institution of slavery is a whole other thing.”
Morrissey said the idea came from conversations with his wife, Myrna Pride, who he said found the statue hurtful considering her own role as a person of color.
It seems, however, Morrissey has only gotten as far as making a promise to remove the statue. He said he wasn’t sure what the cost of removal would be, nor did he have any ideas as to what should be put in its place.
“I do know this – the human cost, the abject suffering that people, all people, not just people of color, feel with this monument, that champions slavery, is far far greater than the cost of removal,” he said.
Morrissey has supported the removal of Confederate statues from Monument Ave since at least the first Mayoral debate held earlier this year at Virginia Union University. (seen below)
This promise seems to be enough for people like Robert Huotari, a Richmond-based businessman who said he’s been supporting Morrissey across his many campaigns for over 20 years.
“Morrissey is the kind of man that, when he makes a promise or commitment, he can take it to the bank – there’s no flip flopping. Like it or not, he’s going to follow through,” Huotari said, calling Morrissey a “can-do mayor.”
As for the specifics of the Davis statue, Houtari, a South Carolina native, said he supported the idea of removal similar to how his home state has since removed the Confederate flag from their state house.
“Times have changed. And if we’re going to have a unified country we have to bury the past and preferably make the past work for us,” he said. “Men who will stand up and fight for what they believe in you can never fault, but someone who leads a country whose primary goal was subjugation, I personally take a little issue with that.”
Morrissey’s campaign was leading in the 2016 RVA Mayoral race according to a Christopher Newport’s Wason Center for Public Policy poll released at the end of August.
The former Virginia Delegate and lawyer has been plagued with issues in connection to his personal life – from sex scandals to courtroom fist fights – which often overshadow his political work.
Richmonders will get their chance to cast their vote for “fight’n Joe,” or not, on Nov. 8th.
