Forrest lawsuit vs. city dropped
No legal conflicts with descendants remain
A procedural legal maneuver made Monday could pave the way for Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife to leave Memphis for the final time.
On Monday, the descendants of the former Confederate cavalryman, slave trader, Memphis City Councilman and suspected Ku Klux Klan member filed a motion to dismiss their 2018 suit against the City of Memphis and Memphis Greenspace, the entity that owns what is now Health Sciences Park.
That motion means there are no remaining legal conflicts between the descendants of Forrest, the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp #215 over the 2017 removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue and another of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis. The filing Monday also means that Memphis’ maneuver to get rid of the statues has withstood all legal scrutiny — thus far.
It also means that Greenspace, the
owner of the park, and the family could move forward with the legal proceedings for Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann, to be reinterned for a second time. Their bodies were removed from Elmwood Cemetery, where they were originally buried, and placed beneath the statue in 1904.
In December 2019, the Forrest statue was returned, in secret, to the family and Sons of Confederate Veterans as part of a private agreement between those groups and Greenspace. It is not yet known where the statues are being stored other than that it is outside Shelby County, but it is expected the bodies would be reunited with the statue.
On Monday, Edward Phillips, attorney for the family and veterans organization, said the dismissal of the suit “clears the way for everyone to move forward.”
“At some point, we will move forward with the last remaining issue [the graves],” Phillips said in an interview Monday. He praised Greenspace, and Van Turner, the head of the nonprofit, as well as the City of Memphis legal staff for their cooperation in resolving the disputes.
A legal notice related to the reinternment is expected to be published in the weekly newspaper, the Memphis Daily News, in the coming days.