Tag: Jefferson Davis

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News News Blog

Appeals Court Sides With City in Confederate Statue Suit

Minutes before Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue was removed from Health Sciences Park

The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a decision made by Davidson County Chancery Court denying the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) a temporary injunction against the city of Memphis for removing Confederate statues from formerly city-owned parks.

The SCV sought a temporary injunction in 2018 to preserve two Memphis parks that were the home of three Confederate monuments, until they were removed in 2017.

Last year, the Davidson County Chancery Court determined that the monuments were no longer on public property and therefore were not covered under the Tennessee Historical Protection Act (THPA) of 2013.

In a decision filed Tuesday, Judge Frank Clement Jr. upheld that ruling, saying that SCV cannot seek an injunction because the Forrest statue is no longer on public property and “thus was no longer a memorial whose status could be preserved.”

“Thus, our purpose is not to address the merits of SCV’s underlying claim or whether, in an enforcement action, the trial court might have jurisdiction under the THPA to enjoin a private entity from further disposing of memorials or issue a mandatory injunction to restore memorials already removed,” Clement wrote. “Rather, we are called upon to decide whether the trial court erred in denying SCV’s request for a preliminary injunction.

“We affirm the trial court’s judgment and dissolve the trial court’s stay of its decision pending this appeal.”

The THPA prohibits removing any monuments or memorials in public spaces without being granted a waiver from the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC).

The city sought a waiver in 2017, but the THC denied it. The THPA doesn’t prohibit the city from selling the parks to a private entity, which the city did in December 2017.

The same night that the city sold the two parks containing statues of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as a bust of James Harvey Mathes, to the nonprofit Memphis Greenspace for $1,000 each, the city removed the statues.

Members of the SCV could now take the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

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Opinion The Last Word

A Modest Proposal

CREDIT: © Palinchak | Dreamstime

Like most non-racist Memphians, I was disappointed but not surprised to hear we will not be getting the resolution we hoped for on the matter of a certain statue next week. The Tennessee Historical Commission will not be considering the city’s request to remove the divisive monument to Civil War loser and wizard of racism Nathan Bedford Forrest from the eastern gateway of our downtown for at least another four months.

The commission claims to be “working out the rules” for hearing the request and cannot make any legally binding decisions until that process is complete. They intend to vote on the rules at the October meeting, after which they will be submitted to the state attorney general and secretary of state. Something tells me they are in no hurry. The 29-member commission did not specify any details regarding the rules waiver applicants should expect to follow, but they apparently can unilaterally agree on one thing: They’re not reviewing any waivers anytime soon.

© Palinchak | Dreamstime

Hillary Clinton

I dunno, y’all. I think they might be stringing us along. It’s crazy — I was always taught that conservatives believed in sovereignty and minimizing government. Empowering an appointed commission to decide what cities can do with their land and property seems like a bit of an overreach. The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act was introduced by a Civil War reenactor in response to the renaming of three Memphis parks in 2013. It only mentions military conflicts — so statues honoring civil rights leaders, cultural visionaries, and important figures who are actually relevant to Tennessee’s history are not protected. As I long suspected, “heritage” is code. The law has one purpose. Taking the waiver route might be a … lost cause.

There are other options. The text of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act stipulates monuments cannot be “relocated, removed, altered, renamed, rededicated, or otherwise disturbed” from public property. So the city can sell the property, right? Just tape off the perimeter around Mr. and Mrs. Nate Bed and auction the land to the highest bidder. The graves and the statue won’t be included in the deal, of course. Transfer funds, sign papers, shake hands, move the Forrests back to Elmwood Cemetery and the statue to a museum. Use the proceeds from the transaction to erect a nice monument to Martin Luther King Jr. for the 50th anniversary of his assassination.

Here’s another out-of-the-box idea I think will change some minds: Put a statue of Hillary Clinton in the park. A larger-than-life bronze statue of the former First Lady astride a unicorn, leaping over a mountain of emails. As secretary of state, Hillary was in the situation room when Osama bin Laden was captured during Operation Enduring Freedom. There’s your war connection. So the statue would be protected under the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. And Health Sciences Park would be an ideal location to erect a monument to the woman who was instrumental in the passage of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which insured millions of American kids. Right?

As the first female major-party nominee for president, Hillary Clinton is a very important part of every American woman’s heritage. Eventually — hopefully in my lifetime — the United States will have a woman president who will thank her for paving her path in her election speech. Women and girls could walk past the statue every day and be inspired. And, you know what they say: Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. So a Hillary statue is required to ensure the 2016 election never happens again. That’s how it works, right?

Just imagine the protests. Tiki torches everywhere. Wall-to-wall Fox News programming. Oh my goodness, the presidential tweetstorm. Oh, you want Hillary to go away? Sorry, she ain’t going anywhere! No, seriously. We would consider moving the statue, but the state legislature says we have to get this waiver from the Tennessee Historical Commission, and it’s kind of an ordeal. Plus, you know, it just wouldn’t be fair to move her statue when we have this other statue of a guy who lost whose supporters would not “get over it.” You’re absolutely right, it’s not the same. Hillary is an ambitious grandma who wanted to be president but used her personal email for work stuff. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a slave dealer, a traitor, and a war criminal. Now, about that waiver …

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and digital marketing strategist.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Circular Firing Squad

CREDIT: Featureflash | Dreamstime

It’s really hard to believe that the mayor of Memphis would denounce “outside agitators” and make a stand against activists wanting to take down the city’s confederate statues. I mean, how tone-deaf can you be?

I’m speaking, of course, of former Mayor Willie Herenton, who, in 2005, used that epithet to describe the Rev. Al Sharpton, who’d come to Memphis to support local activists who wanted to remove the Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis statues and rename the city parks where they stood.

Sharpton’s response to Herenton: “You need outside agitators when you don’t have enough inside agitators. Don’t get mad at us for doing your job.”

I think it’s safe to say Memphis now has a sufficiency of “inside agitators.” The persistent and vocal push to remove the Forrest and Davis statues has reached critical mass, having gained support from current Mayor Jim Strickland, the Memphis City Council, and even Governor Bill Haslam.

It’s been a long time coming. I did a little casual research on the Flyer website and noted that the paper has been reporting on and editorializing about this issue since at least the mid-1990s, when we first began putting our content online.

There have always been those who took a stand against the statues, but for years their voices were buried by bureaucracy and stymied by local politics and well-organized and well-funded opposition from confederate supporters. No more.

It seems inevitable now: The statues will come down in Memphis, as they are coming down all over the country. The devil is in the details and the timing.

We would not have gotten to this point if not for people willing to take a stand; people willing to make other people uncomfortable; people willing to confront the status quo. Through their persistence and courage — and the inadvertant “help” of those using confederate symbols in conjunction with acts of terrorism and murder — more and more people are coming to realize that too often it’s not “heritage” that’s being served by these symbols and monuments — it’s racism and tacit veneration of white supremacy and slavery. And more people are supporting the idea that decisions about such symbols should be made by local municipalities, and not subject to the whims of rural state legislators whose values are not those of most Memphians.

I think it’s important at this juncture that the disparate forces moving to make the statues come down do all they can to avoid the “circular firing squad.” The goal has been agreed to. The agenda is no longer in question. How and when we get there is what is still in dispute. But those with a mutual goal should avoid demonizing each other. That just muddies the water, weakens the process, and strengthens the opposition.

The mayor and the administration seem bent on taking the battle to court, challenging the Tennessee Historical Commission’s 2016 ruling against the city. Activists want more immediate measures taken — ceding the park land to private conservancies, for example, or just removing the statues and dealing with the legal consequences afterward.

It would help if, instead of attacking each other and creating more divisiveness between folks who have a common stated goal, the various contingents could work together to find mutual ground, say, agree upon a date by which the statues must come down, one way or another. A good target, in my opinion, would be March, 2018, at the latest — prior to the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in our city.

Let’s all agitate in the same direction. We’ll get there faster.

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Editorial Opinion

Monumental Democracy

Enormous amounts of rhetoric have been loosed, both locally and nationwide, regarding the monuments to confederate figures and confederate causes that were erected in years past, and action of some sort is sure to follow. Even before the unsettling recent disturbances involving a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, a circumstance that saw opportunistic Nazis on the march and the resulting tragic death of a counter-protester, these statuary homages to a lost cause had potential for serious divisiveness.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Recognizing that fact, Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans had the foresight to remove the confederate monuments there. Baltimore has since dismantled its own, and, pending possible further action, Charlottesville has moved to cover up the statue of Lee and another of Stonewall Jackson. Other cities have done something similar, and, famously and urgently, Memphis has the ongoing quandary of what to do with its downtown statues to Nathan Bedford Forrest and confederate president Jefferson Davis.

The prospect for decisive action on the matter has mounted significantly of late, with Governor Bill Haslam joining city officials in calling upon the Tennessee Historical Commission to acquiesce in the statues’ removal, and the momentum is such that, one way or another, they could be gone even without such formal approval.

As it happens, Memphis is not just on the verge of abandoning an outmoded view of its history by junking one set of monuments, it also has the opportunity to refresh its horizons by erecting another set of memorials.

On Monday, the members of the Shelby County Commission voted unanimously to contribute significant funding to a memorial entitled Memphis Suffrage Monument: Equality Trailblazers, a permanent tribute in glass and bronze to Tennessee women who have loomed large in the expansion of voting rights.

This new memorial is to be a component of the Tennessee Womens Suffrage Trail, a statewide framework overseen by Memphian Paula Casey and Jacqueline Hellman, as well as of the Memphis Heritage Trail. It will also mark the 2020 Centennial of Tennessee’s decisive passage of the 19th Amendment for universal suffrage. It is the work of sculptor Alan Leguire, who has created other monuments to the suffrage movement and to women’s rights in Nashville, Knoxville, and Jackson.

The local memorial will be unveiled in August of 2018 in front of City Hall, and, on the way to the Suffrage Centennial, will also mesh with next year’s 50-year planned commemoration in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and with the 200th anniversary of the founding of Shelby County.

Plans are also afoot to create other monuments to equality in the general perimeter of the monument to the Equality Trailblazers, which will bear the busts of eight pioneers in the fight for, and exercise of, women’s suffrage — Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, Lide Smith Meriwether, Lulu Reese, state Representative Joe Hanover, Charl Ormond Williams, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and state Representative Lois DeBerry, with additional tributes to Marion Griffin, Maxine Smith, and Minerva Johnican.

Monumental women, all of them.

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Editorial Opinion

Cometh the Change

Who, until weekend before last and Charlottesville, could have imagined a large contingent of neo-Nazis and their sympathizers marching en masse in public and claiming to speak on a subject of major national importance. That a gathering of progressive citizens rose up to resist them is only to be welcomed — even if those counter-demonstrators, as President Trump bent over backwards to contend, contained a militant element themselves.

The fact is that a term that was modish for a while in the ’60s and ’70s and then fell out of favor is likely due for a revival. “Participatory democracy” was how it went, and it denoted what was then a rising tide of direct action — demonstrations, marches, citizen interventions, and, in some cases, disruptions of both the planned and spontaneous kind — going on among masses of people who had not been elected to any sort of government.

There is an irony of sorts — or maybe an appropriateness — in the fact that, as our elected representatives in the Congress seem to have settled into a state of gridlock in which nothing (or at least nothing positive) can occur, citizens have taken to the streets to make things happen on their own.

The renewed demonstrations here locally at the site of the Nathan Bedford Forrest monument and grave and the new ones demanding the removal as well of the Jefferson Davis statue on the riverfront, are instances of an obvious sense of impatience and a developing shift in public behavior.

In Memphis, the issue is compounded by a state action taken expressly to counter the will of local government — namely, the Heritage Protection Act of 2016, which places all authority over monuments like those to Forrest and Davis in the hands of the state Historical Commission, which must approve changes in the status of the monuments by a two-thirds vote of its 20 members.

City government has already moved decisively to change the names of three downtown parks from prior appellations that paid homage to the confederacy, including the two parks with the offending statues. Mayor Jim Strickland and the City Council are on record as favoring the removal of those monuments. But the hands of city officials are tied — or seem to be — by the aforesaid state law. Those demanding immediate action point out, however, that the state law, which was rushed into being to prevent any change in the status of the Memphis monuments, lacks any penalty provisions.

Accused by some of the demonstrators as lacking in leadership, Strickland felt constrained to issue an angry rebuttal on his Facebook page, citing his prior actions on behalf of equality of all citizens and saying, “I want every Memphian to see the absurdity of someone accusing a mayor who is actually working on removing confederate statues as being an apologist for white supremacists.” The mayor cautioned against “an attempt to divide this city with the kind of racial politics that we should all reject.”

It is a warning well meant and well worth heeding. But there’s a corollary to it: that the times, they are once again a-changin’, and the order is, indeed, rapidly fading.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Protect the People

CREDIT: Susan Ellis

At 3 p.m. on Saturday, about 250 people gathered in Health Sciences Park around the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue.

“Whose city? Whose park?” went one chant.

“The people united will never be defeated,” went another.

Those in support of the statue weren’t overtly present, though there were some reported sightings. Perhaps it was the heat (heat index 105) that kept them at bay.

Protesters tried to drape the statue in a giant cloth banner and made some headway before the action was quashed by police.

One man yelled for the speakers to stop cussing. The response? “We’re here to take the motherfucking statue down!”

A second attempt at draping the statue led to arrests. Protesters surrounded the cop car to keep them from leaving. The car backed up, bumping into some people, which brought a brief but scary flash of Heather Heyer’s murder in Charlottesville. One woman began to sob.

And then another chant: “Protect the people, not the statue.”

At some point during the event, a call was put out for elected officials to come and speak. There was no response.

Meanwhile at the Crosstown Concourse, both Mayor Luttrell and Mayor Strickland were there for the grand opening of the $200 million project that Todd Richardson, one of the masterminds behind Crosstown, called a miracle.

That event drew between 10,000 and 13,000 people. There were two balloon drops. The balloons were green, black, and white.

The protesters at Health Sciences Park want the statues down, yes, but they also demanded equality across the board — in education, in transportation, in how they are treated by the cops.

Protect the people, not the statue.

• It appears as of now that Strickland is determined to follow the letter of the law in regards to the removal of the statues of Forrest and Jefferson Davis, but wouldn’t it be cool if tomorrow when when we woke up, the statues — poof! — were gone? Now, that would be miraculous.

On Sunday, Strickland issued a statement on Facebook after being chastised for “leaning closer and closer toward white supremacist apologetics” by a pastor in The Commercial Appeal. Strickland’s response was testy, to say the least, and read in part, “I want every Memphian to see the divisive, empty rhetoric that the media chooses to highlight. I want every Memphian to see the absurdity of someone accusing the mayor who is actually working on removing Confederate statues as being an apologist for white supremacists.”

This worked out really well for him because now people are calling him Trump.

• This week’s cover story is about the University of Memphis’ football team and primarily their quarterback Riley Ferguson. Last season, Ferguson emerged from under the shadow of Paxton Lynch and did a pretty good job of it.

My takeaway from the story is that the team will win it all.

• One last thing, this Friday, August 25th, is the last day to vote in this year’s Best of Memphis. I may have mentioned before that I will not say if you don’t vote you can’t complain. Complain all you want.

The 2017 Best of Memphis issue will be on the stands September 27th.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

When you’re a minority in a world of majorities.

CREDIT: Maya Smith

Even though I often find myself in spaces surrounded by people who don’t look like me nor share a cultural common ground with me, I try not to feel self-conscious about the color of my skin or the marked differences of our ancestors’ experiences.

I try not to hone in on those truths. I choose not to contemplate these things, not because I am ashamed of who I am or the amount of melanin in my skin, but because over time, realizing you’re a minority in a world of majorities can be overwhelming.

But there are times, when I can’t help but feel the effects of a system built on discrimination trickle down on me.

There are moments when, despite the efforts I make to respect all people or present myself as a productive, contributing member of society, I’m looked at as inferior based on a false notion birthed from either hate or a lack of understanding of individuals whose skin color or background differs from their own.

One of these moments came last week when I was in the midst of reporting on local activists’ fight to remove two confederate statues from the city. I found myself observing a relentless pursuit by a group of distressed people who look like me stand up for what they believe in.

Maya Smith

Health Sciences Park

On the other hand, I also found myself in an uncomfortable space of division and apathy.

I saw police officers standing in packs, laughing off protesters’ efforts, casually chatting among each other. And then there was the one disinterested cop who thought a protest would be a good time to pick his lunch from his teeth with a stick of floss.

At a protest early in the week, I heard one supercilious cop say to another, “I don’t get their point.” Cop #2 then spat, shrugged, and returned to cleaning his fingernails.

I couldn’t help but glare at the cop who made that statement. He was choosing to be ignorant and dismiss the obvious “point” of their actions: the removal of statues honoring two men who represent racism and hate.

When my eyes met his own entitled eyes, I realized this was the same cop who greeted me with the most condescending smirk I’ve ever received, followed by a disapproving head shake as I approached the protest earlier that evening.

As a journalist, I’m charged with reporting the news without bias, and that mostly comes with ease.

However, in that space of tension last week, not only did I become self-conscious about my brown skin, but I was flooded with emotion.

The prevailing emotion at the time, I believe, was fear. I was afraid of not only what could have transpired at that protest, but afraid of the larger divisive state of the city and the country.

I also felt sad. I was sad that those cops, who took an oath to protect and honor the city’s communities and those living in them, couldn’t even muster up enough empathy to understand where the protesters were coming from.

Coupled with that sadness was anger. I was angry at the people who showed up to “protect the statues” that day and all who have tried in the past. They fail to realize that those statues have a completely different connotation for people with brown skin. Or maybe they do realize it but simply don’t care. That possibly is even more disheartening because no one is free until everyone is free.

I think some might be missing the argument behind wanting the statues gone. No, a statue itself cannot repress a person, but what it represents can.

Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is memorialized in Health Sciences Park for all traveling down Union to see, was heavily involved with the inception of the Ku Klux Klan. The group was formed solely to violently terrorize blacks, northerners, and others whom they opposed.

The KKK has a history rife with violence, oppression, and cruelty — with hate (or perhaps ignorance) at the core of it all.

So, it’s truly, truly hard for me to understand why in 2017 it is okay for the former Grand Wizard to be honored in such a prominent location in a majority black city.

“It’s a part of history,” they say. Or as some like to put it, “you can’t erase history.”

They are so right. I don’t think anyone is stocking up on erasers and time machines. But I do think that the history lesson could be moved to a more appropriate classroom — perhaps a confederate museum.

People should not have to be reminded of a history that thrived on hate and oppression. Why can’t we move on?

So yes, I believe the statues of KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest and president of the confederate states Jefferson Davis should be removed from this city. There’s no question about that.

Still, I won’t stand by the belief that removing figures made of stone and concrete will fix the problems in this city.

Even if the statues came down next week, justice and equality for all in this city would not be achieved overnight. The system would still be broken.

When activism falls short, I believe action must pick up the slack. Let’s do what we can with what we have, right now where we are. That means stepping into our city’s communities of color to lend a hand, meet its needs, tutor, mentor, and uplift. There is groundwork that can be done today to rewrite this city’s future — when will we begin?

Maya Smith is a staff writer for the Flyer.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Into the Forrest

On June 20th, a few hundred people gathered at Bruce Elementary School to discuss strategies for taking down Memphis’ monuments to Confederate war heroes — specifically, the Jefferson Davis statue downtown and the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue near the University of Tennessee Memphis. The Memphis City Council has voted to remove the statues, but they have been stymied by a quickly enacted Tennessee law that forbids the removal of “war memorials” without state permission.

Forrest — the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan — and his wife were disinterred from Elmwood Cemetery and re-buried under an equestrian statue in center-city Memphis in the early 20th century. The Jefferson Davis statue was put up by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1964, after an eight-year fund drive which netted $17,483 — the cost of erecting the statue.

I learned this information from a 2013 column by former Flyer columnist John Branston, whose report also contained this excerpt from the Memphis Press-Scimitar: “This is a matter of pride for Memphis,” said Mrs. Harry Allen, leader of the fund drive. “Memphis is the only major city in the South that does not have a statue of this great man.”

That’s no longer the case. New Orleans recently took down its Confederate monuments. St. Louis is deconstructing its principal Confederate monument; it will be rebuilt and placed on private land. Arizona is considering removing its Civil War monuments from public land. All of that state’s several monuments were erected between 1943 and 2001.

Why does Arizona — which had a nominal connection to the Civil War — have a bunch of Confederate monuments? You tell me. I suspect it’s for the same reason you see Confederate flags flying in rural Pennsylvania and northern Missouri and central Idaho. Heritage.

Right.

Proponents for keeping the statues often say something along the lines of, “With all the problems the city of Memphis has, why are you people obsessed with taking down these statues?” To which I say, “With all of the problems the South has, why are you people so worried about keeping a few statues?”

The fact is, the South needs to rise again. The former states of the Confederacy lead the nation in divorce rates, teen pregnancy, opioid and meth addiction, poverty, sexually transmitted disease, suicide, and illiteracy. We suck up more federal funds than we contribute in taxes. In the face of these daunting problems, our state legislators spend their days obsessing over sex, gender, guns, tax breaks for their corporate benefactors and the wealthy, and instituting their neanderthal version of Christianity as the state religion.

So yes, we all have bigger issues than statues. But as relatively recent history has shown, putting up (and taking down) statues has more to do with the politics of the day than preserving heritage. Statues come and go based on the wishes of the majority and the vicissitudes of contemporary values. If the majority wants a statue taken down or put up, it will happen, eventually.

The biggest divide we’re dealing with in Tennessee is not over the Civil War. It’s rural interests and values versus urban issues and values. Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis are pushing for more progressive policies in the areas of labor and wages, immigration, gender and racial discrimination, education, and gun control. The legislature, which is controlled by a rural Republican majority, is pushing back at every turn, taking away powers that should rightfully belong to the cities — including, but not limited to, deciding what kind of statues the majority of its citizens might want in their parks.

That battle will be difficult. In the meantime, we should take a cue from the folks in Cooper-Young who raised money earlier this month to put up a statue of Johnny Cash. The state can’t stop the citizens of Memphis from erecting statues, at least, not yet. So interested groups should do as the United Daughters of the Confederacy did: Start popping up statues congruent with our mostly non-commemorated heritage — Harriet Tubman, Maxine Smith, Benjamin Hooks. Lots of possibilities.

In the meantime, until they come down, I say we should just build walls around the Nathan B. Forrest and Jefferson Davis statues and charge admission, with the funds designated to the National Civil Rights Museum.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Working to Bring Confederate Statues Down.

Memphis, my hometown, sits on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. In the center of that bluff sits a statue honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis with an engraving that reveres him as “a true American Patriot.” This engraving is an error. In actuality, Jefferson Davis was a condemned traitor, slave owner, and racist. Far from an ideal American or a patriot.

Recently, I called for a public meeting for the people of Memphis to discuss our collective action to have the statues of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and Jefferson Davis removed from our public parks. There is no justification for these statues to continue to stand. Removing statues does not erase history. Their names will still live in history books, museums, and in the memory of their modern-day followers. Built decades after the Civil War ended, these statues were not raised to remember history but to reestablish the prominence of the Confederate South. If we want a Memphis that is inclusive and equitable for all, the statues must come down.

Last week, Karl Oliver, a Republican state representative from Mississippi, said Louisiana leaders and anyone anywhere who moves Confederate statues should be lynched. Oliver represents Money, Mississippi, the city where Emmett Till was murdered by white men who were protected by their government. While Oliver has issued a vapid apology, the call for violence has been echoed throughout the country, and support for him continues.

I take Oliver’s threat of assault personally. Any elected official threatening assault against anyone should be forced to resign. He has made me, personally, feel unsafe and unprotected. In light of the recent murder of black college student Lieutenant Richard Collins III by a white supremacist, Oliver’s words are especially dangerous. His apology has no weight because you cannot unring a bell. While Oliver might not take up the noose himself, there are many who are emboldened by his call to action.

Threats against black people who fight for change are by no means new. For example, last summer, a white man threatened to throw me in the Mississippi River for speaking in support of the Memphis bridge protest. When we fight for justice, we put our lives on the line.

A week ago, Monday, I arrived at Memphis Park, formerly known as Confederate Park, where the Jefferson Davis statue stands. I was there for a television interview regarding the upcoming meeting to remove Memphis’ Confederate statues. During my interview, a group of Confederate memorabilia-wearing and flag-holding white people walked to our side of the park, and one of the men approached us. He stood directly behind my interviewer and waved his flag. When the interview was over, he attempted to greet me. I did not give my name but remained polite. The man said: “Take care of yourself.” I stiffened, hearing a threat in his voice and wondering if he was there to answer Oliver’s call to action. For a moment, I felt the fear which they hope will keep us in a state of inaction.

Unfortunately for people like the Confederate apologists I faced today and Oliver, I will not give up this fight. I will not give up even though I know that our country uses violence and murder to silence black people. I know that as I continue to engage in this movement to bring down these hateful reminders, my name will become familiar to those who will do anything to keep them where they stand. As Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others who have come before me, I am willing to stand in harm’s way for justice.

We invite all supporters to attend the community meeting to decide the next steps for Confederate Statue removal on June 20th at 6 p.m. at Bruce Elementary School. Updates on this cause are shared on the Facebook group Memphis for Removal of Confederate Statues. While the City of Memphis awaits news on the waiver request for Nathan Bedford Forrest statue, we will brainstorm and act upon ideas brought by the public. For more information on the Tennessee statute that governs the statues, review the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act online.

I won’t be intimidated by the threats, and I know my fellow Memphians won’t be either. I hope to see us working together toward true racial reconciliation and progress through the removal of the Confederate statues and achieving equity in education and business contracting, and the many more steps we must take to get there.

Tami Sawyer is a social justice activist, speaker, and writer working for equity and equality. This story is supported by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a yearlong reporting project on economic justice.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Confederate Heritage Groups Vow to Fight Park Name Changes

CREDIT: Toby Sells

They are still fighting the war. 

Not the “War Between the States” or the “War for Southern Independence,” as they call it, but local Confederate heritage groups say they will continue to fight the new names of three Memphis parks. 

The Memphis City Council approved a resolution in February 2013 to change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest Park to Health Sciences Park, Jefferson Davis Park to Mississippi River Park, and Confederate Park to Memphis Park. 

Some residents and a group called Citizens to Save Our Parks (CSOP) filed a lawsuit in May 2013 to block the new names. A judge dismissed the suit in August saying the group had no legal standing to sue. 

Toby Sells

An old-time band plays some Confederate favorites during Saturday’s rededication of the Jefferson Davis statue.

But CSOP vowed to fight on. On Facebook, the group said it had filed an appeal, noting “this isn’t over.” They’ve launched a fund-raiser for the effort, a one-man show “Beyond Glory” that will be staged at the Orpheum Theatre next month.

Confederate heritage groups gathered in Memphis Park on Saturday to rededicate the park’s statue of Jefferson Davis on the 50th anniversary of its first dedication in 1964. Some of the men wore period clothing. Some of the women wore big hats and white gloves. Confederate flags were prominent on pins, neckties, and in a flower arrangement. The flag was also part of a parade of flags that stood next to the American flag, the Tennessee flag, and the Christian flag. 

Mark Buchanan is the commander of the Memphis Brigade of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and president of CSOP. He said many people — even supporters — question why they continue to fight the new names. 

“It’s in our DNA. It’s part of our faith. It’s part of our nation,” Buchanan said. “To try to erase our past is to deny who we are as Americans. It’s simply and undeniably who we are. Good, bad, happy, or sad, we can’t change it. We shouldn’t ignore it and we shouldn’t erase it.”

The day was rife with subtle jabs at the decision to rename the parks and to those behind the decision. Lee Millar, president of the General Forest Historical Society, held up the group’s permit for the event, which, he said, was labeled “Confederate Park.” The realization was met with a “here, here!” from the crowd.

“The park service still recognizes this as the correct park,” Millar said. “Unfortunately, it’s other people in the city, like the permit office, who are getting instructions from above, and I don’t mean ‘that’ above. They are trying to call it something else.”

Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell named Saturday, October 18th “Jefferson Davis Day,” in a signed proclamation from his office. Luttrell did not appear at the gathering but Millar said Luttrell is a “great and devoted proponent of American history, particularly ‘our’ history.” Luttrell’s proclamation called Davis a “great leader” and he “established an example of greatness for future generation through his leadership and public service.”

After his defeat in the Civil War, Davis lived in Memphis and was president of a short-lived life insurance company.