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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2005Protest targets park honoring Klan founderMemphis, Tenn.--Over 250 people--most of them Black, but many whites too--gathered in Nathan Bedford Forrest Park on Aug. 13 to demand this piece of land be renamed. A horseback statue of N.B. Forrest, a founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Confederate general and slave trader, sits in the middle of this park that is adjacent to the downtown campus of the University of Tennessee. Forrest was originally buried in a cemetery, but his body was moved to the park 100 years ago as a symbol of Jim Crow racism. The statue was also installed then and the park was named after Forrest. We also demanded the renaming of two other downtown parks: Confederate Park and Jefferson Davis Park, named after the Confederacy’s president. For decades African Americans have had to live with these paeans to racism, to lynching, to degradation in the heart of the city. Several protesters compared it to having statues of Hitler in Germany. Many local Black politicians, like Mayor Willie Herenton, refused to support the protest, claiming that there are more important issues to deal with, such as poverty and the crisis in TennCare. But protesters countered that, not only is it possible to work on many issues at once, these self-serving politicians haven’t done anything on the other issues either. There was a lot of passion in the crowd, showing that fighting against these symbols of oppression can be an important moment in the struggle for a new, free society. Neo-Confederates have rallied under the banner of "Southern Heritage" to save these symbols of the slaveholders and their rebellion, but we protesters see a dual heritage in the South. We refuse to glorify the heritage of racism and oppression and demand recognition of the history of the struggles for freedom--the slave revolts, the civil rights movement, and so on--as not only "heritage" but as history that is ongoing and is the only history that can move us forward to true freedom. --Participants |
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