A Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan 'Grand Wizard' is being exhumed at a park which once bore his statue in Memphis, Tennessee - the site of Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
The bodies of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, notorious for the massacre of 300 black Union soldiers after they surrendered, and his wife are being moved to a museum 200 miles away.
A lone demonstrator waving a Confederate flag and singing Dixie taunted Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer as she spoke to reporters on Wednesday as the works, which have been more than two years in the making, were carried out.
Forrest's statue which stood over his grave was removed in December 2017 but the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued Memphis Greenspace, a non-profit which has bought up city property holding Confederate monuments, on the grounds it violated the state's cemetery law and Heritage Protection Law, blocking the exhumation.
A judge in Nashville ruled that the city and Memphis Greenspace, the nonprofit that made the park privately operated, removed the statue legally.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans then dropped their lawsuit and agreed with Greenspace to disinter the bodies of Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery, who will be taken, with the statue, to the National Confederate Museum at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee.
Workmen remove a pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate general and early member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's statue which stood over his grave was removed in December 2017 but the Sons of Confederate Veterans group sued Memphis Greenspace, a non-profit which has bought up city property holding Confederate monuments, on the grounds it violated the state's cemetery law and Heritage Protection Law, blocking the exhumation.
John Spain, (left) who had six relatives fights under General Nathan Bedford Forrest, stands by as workmen remove a pedestal, on June 2, 2021. The Sons of Confederate Veterans dropped their lawsuit and agreed with Greenspace to disinter the bodies of Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery, who will be taken, with his statue, to the the National Confederate Museum at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee.
The remains of Forrest and his wife were moved from a Memphis cemetery and buried under the statue of the former Memphis City Council member in 1904
A heavy crane was positioned nearby as workers began taking apart the pedestal on Tuesday. The entire process could take weeks
A workman wearing a patriotic t-shirt and carrying tools at the site on Tuesday
A pile of rubble sits on the yellow letters of 'Black Lives Matter' which were daubed around the monument last summer
Last summer, Black Lives Matter protesters painted around the site where Forrest and his wife are buried in Health Sciences Park in Memphis, Tennessee
'The details got worked out to everyone's satisfaction, so there was no need to continue the lawsuit,' Lee Millar, spokesperson for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told WREG.
Van Turner, of Memphis Greenspace, said: 'They don't have to worry about further protests, further potential vandalism of the monuments.'
Memphis Greenspace had previously considered an effort to ban the statue from ever being erected again in the state of Tennessee but abandoned the idea under the agreement.
'As an American, as a defender of the Constitution, it is their right to do so, to freely express their views,' Turner said. 'It's my right as an American to not support that, to not visit it.'
'In all likelihood, they’ll never see me there, but that’s what they’ve decided to do, and it’s their right to do so,' he added.
Workers must dismantle the statue's pedestal before they can disinter the Forrests' remains and move them to the museum in central Tennessee.
A heavy crane was positioned nearby as workers began taking apart the pedestal on Tuesday. The entire process could take weeks.
As councilwoman Sawyer spoke to the press, she was interrupted by a protester, George 'K-Rack' Johnson, leader of Confederate 901, a Tennessee-based organization that has tried to prevent efforts to remove Confederate-era monuments and symbols.
Johnson paced a few feet from her behind a fence waving a Confederate flag and singing Dixie, which the councilwoman claimed is a racist song.
'My ancestors picked cotton while his ancestors beat and raped my ancestors,' Sawyer told the assembled media as Johnson continued singing.
Sawyer then raised her voice so as to be heard above Johnson's singing and said: 'Dixie is dead, and it was killed by the descendants of black people.'
George ‘K-Rack’ Johnson is seen in the video taunting Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer on Tuesday
As Sawyer spoke to reporters, Johnson could be seen a few feet from her behind the fence waving a Confederate flag and singing ‘Dixie,’ a song about the South that became the de facto national anthem of the Confederacy
When Sawyer told the assembled media members that 'this is a powerful moment,' Johnson said: 'It's a communist moment.'
Sawyer did not speak directly to Johnson, though she did try to refute his claims as she addressed the media.
She told reporters that Martin Luther King Jr, James Baldwin, the Black Panthers, and others in the civil rights movement were accused of being communists.
The park has been the site of Black Lives Matter protests and activists have long called for the removal of the statue and the remains, painting their slogan around the monument last summer.
The tree-lined park is next to the University of Tennessee's medical school and a community college on Union Avenue, a busy street leading in and out of downtown Memphis.
It is another example of how cities and activists have taken steps in recent years to get rid of statues and monuments of historical figures who supported the South's secession and led the fight against the North, from Gen. Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.
Forrest sold slaves in Memphis and served in the Confederate army as a cavalry general. In April 1864, Forrest's troops attacked Fort Pillow in northwest Tennessee and massacred 300 black Union soldiers.
Northern newspaper reports referred to the battle as an atrocity.
Historians say he later became an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, though some of Forrest's supporters dispute that. Forrest's critics call him a violent racist.
The remains of Forrest and his wife were moved from a Memphis cemetery and buried under the statue of the former Memphis City Council member in 1904.
The statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest rests on a concrete pedestal at the park in 2013. It was taken down in December 2017
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