Confederate Veterans Group Receives Removed Statues from the City of Memphis
Jose Nino
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A Tennessee nonprofit group recently turned over statues of Confederate leaders Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis to the Sons of Confederate Veterans according to a report from the Richmond Free Press.
This came about two years after they were taken down from public parks in Memphis.
The Confederate statues have been given to descendants of Forrest and the Sons of Confederate Veterans “to display them as they wish,” Bruce McMullen, legal officer for the City of Memphis, said last month.
The statues’ locations have not been disclosed, but they could be re-erected in the near future.
It should be noted that in the agreement to hand over the monuments, the veterans’ group cannot put the statues back in Memphis or Shelby County, according to a statement from Van Turner, the president of Greenspace Inc., a nonprofit that was active in taking down these statues.
The city of Memphis and the Confederate veterans’ group have fought in court over the statues’ removal from two city parks. The equestrian statue of Forrest and the monument of Mr. Davis were removed on December 20, 2017.
When this removal occurred, Tennessee law restricted the removal or modification of historical memorials on public property. The city of Memphis exploited a loophole in the historical preservation law by selling the public parks to Greenspace.
Greenspace then proceeded to remove the monuments and then stored them at an undisclosed location. However, Forrest and his wife are still buried at the park where his statue was in place for decades.
Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled that the monument removals were not violations of state law because the statues stood on private property when they were removed.
Back in October, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that it would not hear the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ appeal.
The Tennessee General Assembly recently passed a bill making it more difficult for cities to circumvent the law.
They also approved a measure preventing cities from selling or transferring property featuring historic memorials with the express permission from the Tennessee Historical Society or a court.
H. Edward Phillips, the legal counsel for Forrest’s descendants and the Confederate veterans’ group, said the relatives were glad to have the statue issue settled. The descendants have also sued the city over the buried remains, which could potentially be relocated. Turner claimed that issue is currently being taken care of.
Turner also recognized that the Forrest statue’s removal helped allay concerns from prospective investors in Memphis’ growing medical district, where Forrest Park had been located. It is now named Health Sciences Park.
“We are a Southern city, but it does not mean we have to live in the past,” said Turner, a former county commissioner and current leader of the Memphis NAACP.
“But for those things which are not as appealing to everyone, we need to move beyond those things,” Turner said. “I think this was the right time to do it.”
The current monument removal craze is part of the politically correct Left’s greater plan to dissolve American identity.
Confederate monuments are an easy first step. Soon, Founding Fathers and other prominent American figures will be in the Left’s crosshairs. If cleansing society of supposed “racism” is the Left’s goal, a broad array of historical figures is fair game.
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