Opinions of Joe Morrissey’s personal life aside, he was on to something when he said he’d remove the Jeff Davis statue from Monument Ave… but now he’s changed his mind.
Opinions of Joe Morrissey’s personal life aside, he was on to something when he said he’d remove the Jeff Davis statue from Monument Ave… but now he’s changed his mind.
I’m not sure if you can call it a flip-flop when the idea was barely penned out to begin with, but when Mayoral Candidate Joe Morrissey said he’d pull the statue of the non-Virginian Confederate President from the famed street, it seemed like a legit first step.
“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, standing in front of the monument with his Black wife/child-bride late last month (top image). “But to glorify a politician whose principal cause was the institution of slavery is a whole other thing.”
Atta’boy Joe!
But now, according to a Times-Dispatch story, he seems to have changed his mind:
“What I would like to do is have a statue including Jefferson Davis and Union Black* soldiers and Confederate black soldiers showing unification,” he said. “And I think that upon further reflection is a better course of action.”
…
“More than a half dozen people said what would be even better is a statue that included everything and therefore tried to bring it together,” he said. “Some people said that even though we’d prefer the statue wasn’t there, by taking it down that also creates some wounds.
“I said, ‘That makes sense.'”
Atta’boy Joe…. We know you’re probably going to win on name recognition alone, so its good to see you’re already following in Jones’ footsteps of making promises and backing down from them.
In so many words, Morrissey realized ‘all lives matter’ and pulled out of one of his few solid campaign promises. And “Confederate black soldiers” is one of those phrases that sends chills down my spine.
And if you want to be really anal, Morrissey actually promised to remove statues along Monument back in April during the city’s first Mayoral forum:
So he’s turned himself into a liar twice.
People ask me what I think about the Mayoral race this year. Well, there’s not a right or wrong way to repave a road, but promising to do it and then pouring the concrete straight into a former slave burial ground is not a good start.
Personally, we’re all rooting for an Oderus Urungus statue to replace Davis anyway.
