As of noon Friday when the various parties to the planned disposition of the bodies of Nathan Bedford and Mary Forrest conduct a joint press conference at Health Sciences Park (formerly Forrest Park), Stage One of the famously mobile general’s final departure from Memphis will be a fact.
The essential message to be conveyed on Friday is that the bodies have been successfully and safely removed from the site of the former Forrest memorial and are at an undisclosed site ready to be transported to Columbia, Tennessee, for reinterment — presumably along with the bronze statue of the Confederate general on horseback.
Participants at the press conference to be held at noon at the park, are board members of Memphis Greenspace and members of that organization’s legal team; representatives of the Sons of Confederate Veterans of American, who hired the crew performing the disinterment; unnamed city officials; and Brent Taylor, the funeral director whose expertise regarding the move satisfied various state regulations.
