Workers Begin Removing Forrest Remains from Tennessee Park
Adrian Sainz, Associated Press, June 1, 2021
Workers arrived at a Tennessee park Tuesday to begin the process of digging up the remains of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and moving the former slave trader’s body from its longtime resting place in Memphis to a museum hundreds of miles away.
Crews prepared to remove the graves of Forrest and his wife from Health Sciences Park in Memphis’ busy medical district. The park used to bear the name of the early Ku Klux Klan leader and feature a statue of the cavalryman on a horse, but the name has been changed and the statue removed in recent years.
Workers arrived at a Tennessee park Tuesday to begin the process of digging up the remains of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and moving the former slave trader's body from its longtime resting place in Memphis to a museum hundreds of miles away. Crews prepared to remove the graves of Forrest and his wife from…
<p>Work is now underway to remove the remains of a Confederate General and his wife from a park in Memphis, Tennessee. Workers have now begun exhuming the remains of General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Mary Ann, after which they will transport them to the National Confederate Museum at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee, <a href="https://www.unilad.co.uk/news/remains-of-confederate-general-and-his-wife-now-being-removed-from-tennessee-public-park/" title="Read more" >…</a></p>
Crews prepared to remove the graves of Forrest and his wife from Health Sciences Park in the busy medical district, a space which used to bear the name of Forrest, an early Ku Klux Klan leader, and a statue of the cavalryman on a horse.
Workers must dismantle the remaining pedestal before they can disinter the Forrests and move them to a Confederate museum. The process is expected to take weeks. The Sons of Confederate Veterans pressure group is overseeing the move, which a judge approved last year, ending a long legal battle.
Cities and activists have taken steps to get rid of statues and monuments to figures from Robert E Lee, a general, to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, which fought and lost the civil war between 1861 and 1865, in defence of slavery.