More than 10,000 Missy Elliott fans have signed an online petition to replace a Confederate monument in Virginia with a statue to the rap star.
The Change.org campaign hit 10,000 names in just four days after author Nathan Coflin declared Missy was “everything the Confederacy was not”.
He also used the rap star’s lyrics to promote his initiative, adding it was time to “put white supremacy down, flip it and reverse it”.
He hopes local officials will follow his lead and erect a likeness of Missy in Portsmouth, where the Work It rapper was born.
“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?” Coflin writes on the website.
“Hailing from humble beginnings as the only child of a power company dispatcher and a welder at Portsmouth’s lauded naval shipyard, she rose to become a platinum recording artist with over 30 million albums sold. All this without even once owning a slave.
“Let us come together in getting City Council to erect this statue in honour of Missy Elliott and all those in the great City of Portsmouth who work it each and every day.”
Coflin plans to hand the petition over to Portsmouth Mayor John L Rowe for consideration.
The campaign news comes a week after a woman died in nearby Charlottesville during a violent white supremacy rally staged to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General and slave owner Robert E. Lee. The counter-protester was hit and killed when James Alex Fields, Jr. drove his car into a crowd of people.
He has been charged with second-degree murder and other counts.
