Minutes before Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue was removed from Health Sciences Park
The Sons of Confederate Veterans is appealing a ruling by the Davidson County Chancery Court that said Memphis acted legally in removing Confederate monuments.
Lee Millar with the Sons of Confederate Veterans Forrest Camp announced Thursday that the group, along with the family of Nathan Bedford Forrest, will be filing an appeal to the Tennessee Court of Appeals in response to Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle’s ruling that came last week.
Hobbs ruled that Memphis acted legally in its December sale of the two Downtown parks to the nonprofit Memphis Greenspace, who subsequently removed three Confederate monuments from the parks.
Lyle’s ruling was based on the 2016 version of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, which she said doesn’t prohibit the sale of parks containing monuments. “The conveyance was legal and valid.”
In a statement, Millar said:
“The Forrest Camp Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Forrest Family have filed a Notice of Appeal in Chancery Court (Davidson County/Nashville) in regard to our lawsuit against the City of Memphis and Memphis Greenspace concerning the illegal removal of the three Confederate statues in Memphis. The injunction against the City and Greenspace remains in force which prohibits either/both of them from moving, removing, selling or otherwise disposing of the statues and further requires that they protect, preserve, and maintain those statues during this legal process.
We have no further comment on these legal actions at this time.”
