“Many of the tweets are racist and sexist,” he wrote. “I think it’s worth exposing these to the people of Charlottesville, so they know what kind of man Wes is.”

Wissinger did not reply to several emails Friday and Saturday asking him to confirm whether he had promoted the petition on the 4chan forum.

Councilor Kristin Szakos shared comments from the thread over her Facebook account over the weekend. In a phone interview Sunday, she said those deciding whether Bellamy should be removed from council or his teaching position should take into account that such people are trying to undermine his career.

Three days before stepping down from his position on the Virginia Board of Education, Bellamy apologized for the tweets and denied that he is a “black supremacist” or a racist or misogynist.

The tweets, Szakos said, only reveal that he was “only thinking something inappropriate” at the time he wrote them. “There are things that he no longer thinks,” she said, adding that some of the posts on the thread criticizing Bellamy certainly reflect racism against African-Americans.