Statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader, Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader, taken down

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Crews removed two statues of Confederate leaders from parks in Memphis, Tennessee on Wednesday night, after the city sold them to a private entity.

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The city council voted unanimously on Wednesday to sell two parks where the statues were located. Crews began working right away to remove a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a cavalry general. At the second park, a statue of the Confederate president Jefferson Davis was taken down.

The parks were sold to Greenspace for $1,000 each, the Commercial Appeal reported. Memphis’s chief legal officer, Bruce McMullen, said Greenspace could legally remove the statues, which the city was unable to do.

Live video from Health Sciences Park captured cheers as the statue of Forrest was lifted off its marble base and placed on a flatbed truck late on Wednesday. Police cordoned off the area around the statue. The statue of Davis was at Fourth Bluff Park.

McMullen said the statues would be stored in an undisclosed location. Memphis’s mayor, Jim Strickland, tweeted that the work in the parks complied with state law.

Earlier this month, the city filed a petition asking for judicial review of the Tennessee Historical Commission’s denial of a request to remove the Forrest statue.

“I commend Mayor Strickland and the City Council for finding a way to legally remove statues from an era that is not representative of Memphis today and have remained an affront to most of the citizens of Memphis,” US representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis, said in a statement.

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Cities have tried to remove Confederate monuments after the racially motivated massacre of nine people at a black church in South Carolina in 2015 and a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this year.

Protesters have called for the removal of the Forrest statue, saying it represents racism and bigotry. City leaders have discussed ways to relocate the statue and move his remains, which are buried under the monument.

Forrest was a slave trader, Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader who became influential in the city’s growth after the civil war.

Supporters of keeping the statue in place say it represents an important part of history. The Sons of Confederate Veterans in Memphis has said such monuments do not represent white supremacy and it would be a mistake to remove them.

“It is a deliberate attempt to avoid the state law and the city is breaking the law,” Lee Millar, of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told WREG-TV on Wednesday.