Memphis removes Confederate statues
City Council sidesteps historical panel ruling by selling parks to non-profits
MEMPHIS – Two controversial Confederate statues were removed from public parks Wednesday night after city officials found a way to skirt Tennessee law and a state historical commission ruling that would have kept the monuments in place.
City Council members unanimously approved the sale Wednesday of Health Sciences Park, home to a statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest on his horse, and the sale of the city’s easement on Fourth Bluff Park, which had a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, to a non-profit group. That group brought in a crane to remove the statues.
The work began in darkness at 7 p.m. ET Wednesday. By 10:10 p.m. the Forrest statue had been lifted off its base, suspended in the air and put on a truck.
“It’s really going down in history that this is the night they are going to take the statues down,” council member Janis Fullilove said, watching the Forrest monument be dismantled. “It’s a historic moment.”
A chant of “the people united will never be defeated” spread through the crowd that gathered to watch on the drizzly night as word of the removal of the 1905 statue dedicated to Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, circulated on social media. The graves of the Confederate general and his wife, which had been moved to the park from Elmwood Cemetery in 1904, were not disturbed.
City officials hope to inter the For- rests’ remains in their original plot in Elmwood Cemetery where more than 1,000 Confederate soldiers and veterans are buried.
The removal of the Davis statue in Fourth Bluff Park went faster.
At around 11:45 p.m., it was dangling aloft by thick yellow straps from a crane. Minutes later, the statue rested on the back of another truck.
The crowd of onlookers cheered and sang, “Na na na na. Na na na na. Hey, hey, hey, goodbye!”
For the near future, both statues will be stored in an undisclosed location because of security concerns, said Bruce McMullen, chief legal officer for Memphis Greenspace. Memphis Greenspace, the non-profit group that bought Health Sciences Park and the lease on Fourth Bluff Park, signed a contract Friday with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to continue operating both sites as public parks.
The council’s actions Wednesday followed months of frustration for Memphis officials fighting Tennessee’s reams of red tape that kept the statues in place despite a wave of public opposition.
The Tennessee Historical Commission voted Oct. 13 to deny the city’s application to remove the Forrest statue. The administration appealed the decision to Davidson County Chancery Court in the state capital of Nashville and argued separately before an administrative law judge that the city had the authority to remove the statue without a waiver. The city filed for a waiver before the state Legislature in 2016 expanded the scope of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act to include monuments of historical figures.