Tag: Health Sciences Park

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Farewell, Forrest

Farewell, Forrest. (Photo: Jesse Davis)

For some time, I’ve been the de facto book reviewer for the Memphis Flyer, as well as Memphis magazine and Memphis Parent. It’s a gig I’ve cherished and enjoyed, and I fully expect my byline will still appear alongside the occasional book review, if with a somewhat diminished frequency. The downside of being the company book reviewer, though, is I didn’t always feel free to explore every book that caught my fancy. If it wasn’t published recently, didn’t have a local angle, or was just too darn weird, I’d save it for some indeterminate future date. There were too many books to read for work, too many stories to sample and share with my fellow Memphians.

Well, those days are done, and recently I read the (terrifying, disturbing, excellent) new novel by Rivers Solomon purely on the recommendation of a bookseller at one of the local indie bookstores. (Thanks, Stuart!)

That novel, Sorrowland, follows Vern as she escapes from a religious compound and flees to the woods. The compound, Cainland, began as a refuge for Black Americans, a cooperative movement where they could look out for one another since so few others cared to take on that task. But at some point, the people of Cainland were set on a different path. Vern, plagued by hallucinations and strange aches, eventually learns that Cainland was infiltrated as part of a government-led COINTELPRO maneuver, one that transformed the haven into a house of horrors where its inhabitants were unknowingly experimented upon. Sorrowland is a work of fiction, but its pages are dotted with references to real, documented instances that prove its plot is plausible. Predictable, even.

Timing, as they say, is everything, and the timing for my dive into Sorrowland couldn’t have been more perfect if I had planned it. (I did not.) I began the book the same evening, literally hours after I drove to Health Sciences Park to take a photo, for a Flyer Politics Beat Blog piece, of the former resting place of Confederate general, slave trader, and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife. Those days are over, too. Last week, the Forrests were removed from our city and are now on their way to a site in Columbia, Tennessee.

I am not sorry to see those bones leave Memphis.

Yes, Forrest is a part of Tennessee history, and I believe students should learn about his part in it. His legacy is that of a man who robbed Black men and women of their dignity, freedom, and lives. It’s a legacy we should never forget or banish to the back corners of our minds, but anyone whose CV reads like the one listed above has no place in any public park. If one of your biggest accomplishments would now be classified as a crime against humanity, you don’t get a statue.

We get to choose who we put on a pedestal, and we should make those decisions together as a community. Choosing not to enshrine someone in a place of prominence isn’t erasure or cancellation or rewriting history. It’s just a matter of choosing who we celebrate, and I think that we can find better heroes.

Every Memphian should feel welcome in our public parks, and using a public space to honor someone with a history of oppression sends a message that more than 60 percent of our city’s population is not welcome. That message, intended or not, just does not sit well with me.

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Politics Politics Feature

‘Just a Park’

Millar, Turner, and Taylor at Health Sciences Park (Photo: Jackson Baker)

In the wake of a previous circumstance of tenseness and hostility at Health Sciences Park involving the disinterment of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, a press conference at the park on Friday, June 11th, was at least partly designed to clear the air, and to a large extent it may have.

The three principal speakers at last Friday’s press conference were County Commissioner and NAACP leader Van Turner of Greenspace, the nonprofit which now controls the large tract formerly known as Forrest Park; Lee Millar, president of the Memphis branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans; and Brent Taylor, a longtime public official and the local funeral director who satisfied the state requirement for a technical advisor regarding the disinterment of the Forrests, destined now for a new gravesite at a Middle Tennessee site honoring Confederate history.

As Turner expressed it, “Hopefully, all sides were satisfied” — meaning the Black Memphians for whom the removal of the graves and monument meant a “full circle” expungement of former injustice and disregard as well as those whites who equated Confederate General Forrest with glory and their heritage. “I think the Forrest family wanted their ancestor to lie in peace, and there was never going to be any peace here,” Turner said.

Millar attested to the friendly cooperation and a general meeting-of-the-minds between himself and Turner, and Taylor, who saw himself as situated “in the middle” between communities, agreed that “all sides are happy with where we are. Both communities believe that we did this right.”

Asked what the future disposition of the park might be, Turner said he’d received “many recommendations,” but “Right now, we just want this to be a park, not to have any more symbolism here for a little while. We’d like people to just enjoy the park”

• Ellen Hobbs Lyle, the Nashville chancellor who ruled in favor of expanding mail-in voting last year at the height of the pandemic and subsequently incurred the wrath of the state Republican establishment, said last week that she wouldn’t seek another eight-year term in 2022. The suit that she ruled on was pressed by the ACLU and by a group of Memphis petitioners, and Lyle’s ruling was stoutly resisted by the state’s election authorities, who managed to get its scope reduced somewhat in an appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Subsequently, measures to punish Lyle were pushed by GOP legislators in the general assembly but were rejected.

• Governor Bill Lee announced last week that his administration would go ahead with a 37-mile wastewater pipeline connecting the still dormant Haywood County industrial megasite to the Mississippi River. Construction of the $52 million project could begin in the first quarter of 2022.

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News News Blog

‘Never to Return’: Greenspace Wants Confederate Statues Out of Shelby County

Former site of the Forrest statue

The group that removed Confederate statues from city parks here in 2017, said Thursday it is looking to permanently relocate them outside of Shelby County.

The move comes after the Supreme Court of Tennessee denied a petition from the Sons of Confederate Veterans on Wednesday. The group hoped to get a review of its case against the city of Memphis for the removal of the city’s Confederate monuments.

The statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, along with a bust of Confederate Capt. Harvey Mathes, were all removed in 2017 and have been stored in an undisclosed location since.

Now, Van Turner, president of Memphis Greensapce, Inc, the non-profit that bought the two city parks where the monuments stood, said the organization is looking to get the statues out of Shelby County, “never to return.”

This week’s decision by the state Supreme Court effectively ends the litigation surrounding the statues, Turner said. Now, the Geenspace will “entertain conversations with a number of entities” to transfer the monuments in an “appropriate way.”

Turner said whatever entity the monuments are transferred to will be asked to sign an agreement that prohibits the monuments from returning to the county.

“That’s our main focus right now,” Turner said.

The group’s next focus will be the gravesites of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, which still remain in Health Sciences Park near the former site of the Forrest equestrian statue, Turner said.

Litigation surrounding the graves had been stayed pending a ruling by the state Supreme Court.

Now, the Shelby County Chancery Court will determine the fate of the graves, but for now it’s “up in the air,” Turner said.

Renovations are underway at Memphis Park

In the meantime, Turner said Greenspace, in partnership with the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) and the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), is looking to give the parks a refreshed look.

Enhancements to Memphis Park, which will be funded by Reimagining Civic Commons and were approved by the DMC’s Design Review Board in July, are already underway.

Improvements to the park include tree removal and replanting of trees, adding more benches and tables to create dining areas, and paving new trails. Lawn games and activities will also be added to the space.

The idea is to create a “greener, leafier, and more natural space that does a better job connecting the Bluff Walk with the River Garden,” according to the proposal submitted to the Design Review Board.

Turner said all of the enhancements are meant to make the park more “user-friendly.”

“The parks are symbols,” Turner said. “Do we have challenges? Yes. Is there a painful history there? Yes. Can we overcome those challenges? Yes. Can we return something that was negative in many respects into a positive that shows Memphis and Shelby County can move forward in a unified way? The proof is in the pudding looking at what were already able to do with the parks. It’s a win for every citizen in Shelby County and city of Memphis.”

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News News Blog

Greenspace Looks to Recreate Parks Formerly Home to Confederate Statues

CREDIT: Downtown Memphis Commission

Former view of Memphis Park

Memphis Greenspace, the nonprofit that bought two Downtown parks and removed the Confederate statues from them last year, is now looking to activate and reinvent the spaces.

After additional Confederate memorabilia was removed from Memphis Park last weekend, Van Turner, director and president of Greenspace, said there are no longer any impediments in the park.

“Let’s recreate the parks and put there what people want,” Turner said. “The slate is clean.”

Over the weekend, proof of the clean slate was evident in Memphis Park, as it housed the city’s inaugural Dîner en Blanc, a pop-up dinner party established in Paris in the late ’80s.

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Penelope Huston, vice president of marketing at the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), one of Greenspace’s community partners, said 1,175 people attended the dinner and with the Confederate memorabilia still in the park that type of event “would not have been possible.”

When the organizer of the pop-up dinner came to Memphis looking for an event venue, Huston said “there was no place she wanted to be more” after learning about the history of Memphis Park.

Downtown Memphis Commission

Memphis’ inaugural Dîner en Blanc

“It made sense to help wipe the slate clean,” Huston said.

In an average week, the park also brings in more than 200 people for DMC-sponsored yoga and pilates classes.

“All this is bringing in thousands of people who haven’t experienced that park before who are now coming into Downtown and engaging with the parks,” Huston said. “Those numbers are important because they would have all been zero before.”

However, things are moving slower in Health Sciences Park where Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are still buried.

Turner said he hopes that the litigation surrounding the graves and markers will wrap up by the end of the year.

There has already been efforts to do programming in Health Sciences Park, Huston said, but there hasn’t been a lot of community engagement. “We haven’t given up, though.”

Huston said the challenge is getting people back into parks where they previously hadn’t felt welcomed.


“Because people have been out of those spaces for a while, they have to be trained to come back in,” Huston said.

Still, Turner said there is a lot of potential at both park and that Greenspace is working with its community partners — the DMC, Memphis Medical District Collaborative, Memphis River Parks Partnership, Memphis Bloom, and UT Health Sciences — to further activate the parks.

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The nonprofit is also open to suggestions about what should be implemented in the parks, Turner said. Feedback can be submitted on the Greenspace website.

Pop-up playgrounds, more seating, and art installations are all possibilities for the future, he said.

As far as memorializing any one person in the parks, which was an idea floated around by activists after the statues were removed, Turner said he thinks they should be temporary, rotating every several months.

“From a creative standpoint, we don’t want to be stuck in the mud, stuck in history, and get caught flat-footed again,” Turner said. “We want the park to be living, breathing, and fluid, while being able to change and reinvent itself.”

Turner said that’s the direction the city should go in as well, as “Memphis needs to reinvent itself and not be stuck in the past.”

“We need to constantly be evolving and reinterpreting what is already here,” Turner said. “That’s how you grow and how you keep people coming back.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Parks and Rec

In Overton Park last Sunday, a bunch of people took off their shirts and covered their nipples with various kinds of sticky items in celebration of International Go Topless Day. It was a symbolic protest, claimed organizers, a bold stance against the cruel laws that allow men to take off their shirts in public, but not women.

I just briefly glanced at the pictures posted on the Flyer website … Okay, maybe “briefly” isn’t the right word. Anyway, what I saw was a bunch of humans of many shapes and sizes with their shirts off. Many of the men wore bras to further demonstrate the absurdity of banning views of the nipple for one sex and not the other. (In a couple of cases, it appeared the men could actually use the support, but I digress.)

At any rate, it was not sexy — anything but, actually — but it looked like everyone was having fun. So whatever. At least it wasn’t a total bust.

Meanwhile, out at Shelby Farms, folks were dressed in Elizabethan garments, drinking mead (or beer), jousting, eating turkey legs, and in general having a great time at the Mid-South’s first Renaissance Faire. The turnout was great, and I hear a good tyme was had by everyone. It’s happening again this weekend, if any of ye all are still wanting to shake your bodkins.

And there was also action at the cleverly named Health Sciences Park downtown, where the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest was defaced for the second time in as many weeks with spray paint. “AwGoWhat” was the message this time. And it didn’t take Memphis’ finest long to crack the case and arrest perennial wackjob mayoral candidate Leo Awgowhat for vandalism. (I’m just guessing here, but I suspect ol’ Leo is also the one responsible for defacing several other mayoral candidates’ signs around town with the same message.)

The City Council also voted to move the NBF statue last week, but anyone who thinks that will happen anytime soon is just, uh, whistling Dixie. This case will be fought over in courtrooms for months, if not years. And if the city does eventually win, the moving of the statue, and the even more traumatizing move of Forrest and his wife’s bodies, will provide more ugly controversy and bring national press to town for reasons that won’t be to anyone’s liking.

Maybe we need to get a little more creative about this issue. How about if we built a circular wall around the statue, tall enough to block it from easy view? Then we charge a stout admission to those wishing to see the thing. That’s a win-win, right? Nobody has to look at the Wizard of the Saddle unless they want to, and we make a some dough off of the Confederate fetishists. Use the money to fund scholarships for deserving minority students.

I realize that it will never happen. It makes too much sense and requires compromise, two things that are always in short supply. But, full disclosure, I’m about to go on vacation, so none of this will be on my radar for a couple weeks. I plan not to think about Nathan Bedford Forrest for one moment while I’m gone. I trust all of you will behave and keep your shirts on ’til I get back.

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News The Fly-By

Update on Removal of Forrest Statue

CREDIT: Toby Sells

The Memphis City Council voted this week to remove the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest from Health Sciences Park, even though the next steps to make that happen remain murky.

The proposal to remove the statue surfaced in June, part of a national movement to remove Confederate symbols after a white supremacist shot nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. 

Toby Sells

Confederate supporters at a rally on Saturday

The move also ratifies a 2013 resolution to rename Forrest Park to Health Sciences Park, Confederate Park to Memphis Park, and Jefferson Davis Park to Mississippi River Park. A separate but related proposal to move Forrest’s remains and those of his wife from the park and back to Elmwood Cemetery was approved by the council in early July.

Council chairman Myron Lowery sponsored the ordinance for the statue’s removal.

“It’s important because Memphis is not the same city it was in 1905, when the statue was put in place,” Lowery said. “It is wrong to honor a slave trader on public property in 2015.”

But Lee Millar, a leader of the local Sons of Confederate Veterans group, said Saturday he didn’t see it that way. He and about 100 others gathered around Forrest’s statue, hoisting, waving, and wearing Confederate flags, their conversations about Southern heritage and the council vote only interrupted by a bullhorn that sporadically belted out “Dixie.”

“We’ll be there Tuesday to let the council know they’re doing the wrong thing,” Millar said. “They don’t need to erase Memphis history.”

Millar said removing the statue is a “waste of time,” that it wouldn’t “solve a single problem with gangs and crime and all of that,” and that it would only “add to the division in Memphis.” Forrest was a “prominent Memphian,” Millar said, as a city council member and an executive in an insurance company and a railroad who “hired blacks and whites alike” to help “rebuild Memphis after the [Civil War].”

Allan Wade, the city council’s attorney, said last week that he was still working on a plan for the statue’s removal and would reveal the details to the council. An official in Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s office said the city has had “several offers” for the statue, including a very public one from the mayor of Savannah, Tennessee, who told news outlets last month his city would pay for the statue and its relocation.

“But there is still a lengthy process that has to take place before the statue and graves can be removed from the public space,” said Dewanna Smith, a Wharton spokesperson. “At this point, it would be premature to respond to any offers.”

Relocating the graves will also be a lengthy process. The matter will be decided in Shelby County Chancery Court in a case between the city and Forrest’s descendants. Millar said he has located eight Forrest descendants in the area and that “every one of them is steadfastly against moving the statue or the grave.”

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News News Blog

Council Committee Agrees On Relocating Forrest Statue and Remains

The Memphis City Council Parks Committee on Tuesday approved an ordinance allowing the city to move the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue out of Health Sciences Park, and they also approved a resolution to move the remains of Forrest and his wife, which are buried at the park.

The ordinance and resolution came on the heels of a national movement to remove symbols of the Confederacy after a reported white supremacist, Dylann Roof, allegedly murdered nine church members at the historically black Emanuel AME Church in June.

The ordinance to transfer ownership of the statue and to remove and relocate it will be required to pass three readings of the full council before it would go into effect. The resolution to remove the Confederate general’s remains only requires one reading, and the council agreed this morning to move it to tonight’s full council agenda.

But even if that resolution passes, state law would require that the city bring a lawsuit in Shelby County Chancery Court to have the remains removed and relocated. State law requires a Chancery Court decision for the removal and reburial of remains, and any remaining relatives of the deceased must be made a party in the lawsuit.

City Councilmember Janis Fullilove questioned whether the decision to move the statue and remains were related to recent news of the University of Tennessee’s planned expansion. Fullilove said, if UT wanted to purchase the Health Sciences Park land, there could be an ulterior motive for moving the statue. But Myron Lowery, who said he proposed the move before Mayor A C Wharton held a press conference about it two weeks ago, said the move was discussed before he learned of UT’s expansion plans. 

“And there is no proposal to the city from UT to deal with that land,” Lowery said.

Edmund Ford Jr. said he’d talked to a man who was interested in having the statue moved to Shiloh Military Park in Tennessee. And Lowery said he’d heard from others with interest in the statue. An opinion on the matter written by council attorney Allan Wade said Elmwood Cemetery also had room for the statue. But there’s been no decision yet on where the statue would go.

As for the remains, Wade’s opinion highlights the fact that Forrest’s will, which was probated in Shelby County on December 17, 1877, mentions his request to be buried at Elmwood “among the Confederate dead.” Forrest and his wife were originally buried at Elmwood, but their remains were moved to Health Sciences Park (formerly Forrest Park) on November 11, 1904.

The statue was dedicated there on May 18, 1905 by the Forrest Monument Association. The association paid for the statue with private donations, including the donated salaries of the Memphis City Councilmembers who held office in 1903. On March 25, 1903, the association had petitioned the council to authorize a special tax levy for the statue. The council objected because of the need for funding for streets, sewers, and bridges, but the since the members supported the idea for the statue, they agreed to donate that day’s salaries to the cause.

At today’s council committee meeting, Lee Millar of the Sons of Confederate Veterans expressed disapproval of the proposed move of the statue and the remains.

“We are steadfastly opposed to moving the statue of one of our American heroes,” Millar said. “And it would be an abhorrent thing to dig up the graves in Forrest Park.”

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News News Blog

Wharton Wants Forrest Statue Removed From Park

Nathan Bedford Forrest statue in Health Sciences Park

In one of the many reactions to the murders in the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting last week, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton announced Thursday that he wants the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest removed from Health Sciences Park.

The recent attention that has been given to the dismissal of the Confederate flag from state capitals since the shooting has put more pressure on Southern political leaders to make a statement on any remnants of Confederate history.

“We are simply saying that there might be a more appropriate place,” said Wharton. “In the case of the flag, put it in a museum. Don’t put it out in common places. You see, we all have t

o drive down Union Avenue. It’s a common, unavoidable place. If someone wishes to see that, then go over to the cemetery in the peace of solitude, tranquility, and reverence and do it there. What Americans would say, I’d like to have a picnic in the shadow Bedford Forrest?”

Forrest fought in the Confederate army and is declared by many as one of the original leaders of the Klu Klux Klan, although any public involvement with the group is harder to pin down. Both his and his wife’s bodies are buried near the statue in Health Sciences Park. Their remains were originally buried at Elmwood Cemetery, but they were moved to the park in 1904.

The call for the statue’s removal comes only two years after the name of the park itself was changed. In February 2013, the park was renamed from Forrest Park to its current name in a vote by the Memphis City Council.

The final decision on moving the statue and the bodies would have to be made by the Memphis City Council, making the Mayor’s declaration just a declaration. Any decision would have to come from the council and will likely receive much opposition from groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Wharton made it clear that removal of other Confederate symbols, specifically the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, around the city was a discussion for another day. His thoughts on the Forrest statue, however, according to the Mayor, are simple.

“We have an opportunity to just go ahead and remove this monument to a horrible time of the history of our state and nation,” Wharton said. “Let’s just do it.”