Political Forums  

Go Back   Political Forums > Current events

We appreciate your help

in keeping this site going.
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 12-24-2017, 10:50 AM
bobabode's Avatar
bobabode bobabode is offline
Admin
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Behind the Orange Curtain in California
Posts: 37,188
'Hit the road Jeff - and Nathan'

"MEMPHIS — The City Council here voted Wednesday to sell two city parks with Confederate monuments, clearing the way for two statues to be removed before the city commemorates the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mayor Jim Strickland first announced the sales of Health Sciences Park and Memphis Park on Twitter.
“History is being made in Memphis tonight,” he said at a news conference later in the evening.
Health Sciences Park had a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and an early member of the Ku Klux Klan, which was removed around 9 p.m. local time.
By 10:30 p.m., cranes had maneuvered into Memphis Park and around a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. About 15 minutes later, a crane hoisted the statue onto a truck as a crowd cheered and struck up songs, including “Hit the road Jack.”
The removal of the statues came not only as Memphis prepares for the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while visiting the city, but also amid a sweeping national debate about the significance of Confederate monuments and whether their removal would be an erasure of history or a righting of past wrongs.

Around the country, cities have removed symbols ranging from the Confederate flag, to memorials of rank-and-file Confederate soldiers, to statues of prominent generals including Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
Within an hour of the Memphis City Council’s vote, police officers and cranes were deployed to Health Sciences Park.

Just after 9 p.m., the crane began to lift the statue into the air, the horse and rider dangling above the pedestal. Onlookers cheered. Someone yelled, “Now drop it!” Others chanted: “Hey hey! Ho ho! That racist statue has got to go!”
Kyle Veazey, a spokesman for Mr. Strickland, wrote on Twitter that the statue was lifted at 9:01 p.m., an apparent nod to the city’s 901 area code. One of the groups that led the movement to remove the statues was called Take ’Em Down 901.
“Just to finally get to this moment is overwhelming,” Tami Sawyer, a leader of the group, said.
“I looked Nathan Bedford in the eyes and shed a tear for my ancestors,” she said, recalling the history of African-Americans from slavery to modern incarceration." NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/u...cle-click&_r=0

Good riddance.
__________________
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
- Mr. Underhill
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:59 PM.



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.6
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.