Judge OKs Memphis' Confederate Statue Removal

NASHVILLE, TN -- The city of Memphis did not violate state law when it sold two city parks to facilitate the removal of statues commemorating Confederate figures, a Nashville judge ruled.

Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled Wednesday that the city did not violate the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act in December when it sold two parks to a non-profit, which then removed statues of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Capt. J. Harvey Mathes and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

(For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

Under the THPA, 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. Heretofore, the historical commission has refused to grant Memphis approval to remove the statue of Forrest - a slave trader and early Ku Klux Klan leader - and other Confederate figures from Health Sciences Park and Fourth Bluff Park. Thus, the city sold the parks Dec. 20 to Memphis Greenspace Inc., a rapidly created non-profit, for $1,000 each with an agreement Greenspace continue operating the lands as parks open to the public. Monuments on private land, as the parks now technically are, are not subject to the THPA.

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.

As this year's session of the legislature concluded, the state's House of Representatives attempted to punish Memphis by removing $250,000 from the budget which was earmarked for Memphis' upcoming bicentennial.

Image via Shutterstock