Have you ever wondered why it’s so difficult to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from our state Capitol? One might think someone could just pick it up and move it. But it isn’t that simple, and you can thank Memphis for that.
In January 2013, Memphis removed a granite marker that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had placed in Nathan Bedford Forrest Park. There was also a movement afoot to change the names of three different Memphis parks: Confederate Park, Jefferson Davis Park and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park. When state legislators caught wind of these proposed changes, they weren’t happy, and they filed legislation to stop it. This piece of legislation was named The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013.
“The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act was started because of the Memphis city council,” Democratic state Sen. Lee Harris, who served on the Memphis city council at the time, tells the Scene. “The legislature wanted to stop the city of Memphis from changing the names of those three Confederate parks.”
Introduced by Republican state Rep. Steve McDaniel of Parkers Crossroads and Republican state Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro, the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act stated that any statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, plaque, historic flag display, school, street, building, park, preserve or reserve that’s named after a military event or figure cannot be moved or renamed if it’s on public property. The law listed the different wars that applied, but the “Civil War” was not among them. Rather, the legislation used the phrase (continue reading at NashvilleScene)