Jefferson Davis statue at the Memphis Park
There will be a public meeting tomorrow evening at 6:00 for Memphians who want to see the Confederate statues in the city removed.
The meeting, hosted by the Memphians for the Removal of Confederate Statues group, will be at Bruce Elementary School.
Tamara Sawyer who leads the group says the meeting will be a space for citizens to express their concerns about the presence of Confederate statues and collaborate on possible future actions.
Specifically, the focus will be on the removal of the Nathan Benford Forrest statue in Health Sciences Park and the Jefferson Davis statue in Memphis Park.
There will also be an opportunity to sign a petition for those statues’ removal, as well as a discussion of ways to keep city and state officials accountable to working toward their removal.
Sawyer says the City of Memphis has already requested a waiver for the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue, but has made no action toward the Jefferson Davis statue that stands in the Memphis Park on the Fourth Bluff.
However, the efforts of Sawyer and the group have not been in vain, as last week after she and others began boycotting events at the Memphis Park because of the statue’s presence, the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) relocated their weekly yoga class from that park to the Mississippi River Park near RiverPlay.
The DMC shared on their Facebook page that they “acknowledge the Memphians for the Removal of Confederate Statues initiative” and clarified that they “love our parks, not the confederate statues.”
Additionally, the Fourth Bluff team, who holds weekly Friday concerts at the Memphis Park has decided to move their events to the Mississippi River Park as well.
