MEMPHIS, Tenn. — December 20th, 2017, will go down as one of those red letter days in the history of Memphis. On that evening, crews descended on two city parks and dismantled Confederate monuments – one of which had been standing for more than 100 years.
After the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis came down, you would have thought we were destined for a repeat of the civil war. Confederate lovers were livid. And before long, state lawmakers sympathetic to the lost cause tried to punish Memphis by denying state funds for the city’s bicentennial celebration in 2019. Then came the lawsuits claiming the monuments were illegally removed.
It was a divisive time for a city with a history of racial strife. But here we are nearly two and half years after that fateful December evening, and the legal battles are over. The Davis and Forrest statues have been turned over to descendants and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And now, the remains of Forrest and his wife also will be moved from Health Sciences Park and reinterred elsewhere.
All of this should have occurred long ago. But it finally happened thanks to strong grass roots activism – and smart maneuvering by Mayor Jim Strickland’s administration and county commissioner Van Turner.
Now, Memphis can really turn the page on a sad and misguided piece of our history – where symbols of racism and hate were honored. And that’s my point of view.