Confederate Statues Come Down In Memphis After City Sells Parks

MEMPHIS, TN -- Controversial statues commemorating Confederate officials came down in Memphis Wednesday after the City Council exploited a loophole in a state law designed to curtail statue removal efforts.

The Memphis City Council approved the sale of two parks - Health Sciences Park, home of the statue and gravesite of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan; and an easement in Fourth Bluff Park, site of a statue of President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis - to non-profit Memphis Greenspace Inc. for $1,00 apiece with the agreement the organization continue operating the land as parks.

Late Wednesday, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who has pushed for the statues' removal as part of MLK50, the commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination at the Lorraine Motel and ahead of the city's bicentennial in 2019, said the removal showed a "united and determined Memphis."

"Though some of our city’s past is painful, we are all in charge of our city’s future. Black and white, young and old — every single one of us. That’s the symbolism for which I want this day to be remembered," he said. "So here’s the challenge I leave you with today: That we carry this same spirit of solidarity to cast the Memphis we want for our next hundred years," Strickland said. "Because while these statues are gone, our challenges remain."

The sale, which will almost certainly be challenged in court by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, allows Greenspace, as a private entity, to remove the statues. Under Tennessee state law, statues and monuments in spaces owned by state or local governments can only be removed through a convoluted process that includes petitions by the local government and approval by two-thirds of the state's historical commission.

Statues on private land - which, technically, the parks now are - are not subject to the law and by 6 p.m., the statue of Forrest was being removed, according to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, as police surrounded the downtown parks, blocking access with police tape. The Davis statue came down later Wednesday.

Strickland tweeted the news shortly after the council voted Wednesday.

The historic commission voted Oct. 13 to reject Memphis' longstanding request to remove the statues. The city appealed that decision, but instead of waiting for a judge's ruling, executed the clever dodge.

The Memphis City Council has requested approval to remove the monuments several times in the last few years and the statues have been source of controversy for decades, as have the gravesite of Forrest and his wife, whose will made it clear they preferred to be buried at Elmwood Cemetery, but both were moved to what is now Health Sciences Park in 1904 and the statue of the general erected. The park was known as Forrest Park until it was renamed by the council in 2013.

Strickland said he spoke to Gov. Bill Haslam Wednesday, but would not elaborate. Haslam, a Republican, has supported the Memphis effort in the past and encouraged the removal of a bust of Forrest from the State Capitol earlier this year. That bust remains after the Capitol Commission voted against requesting its removal.

AP Photo/Adrian Sainz, File