The remains of a Confederate general and his wife will be removed from a park in Memphis, Tennessee.
Crews began removing General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Mary Ann from Health Sciences Park on Tuesday, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
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The pedestal where Forrest, the slave trader and early Ku Klux Klan leader, was buried formerly bore a statue of his likeness. The statues of Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis were removed in 2017 when Memphis Greenspace, a nonprofit organization, took ownership over the park.
In May 2020, the Sons of Confederate Veterans agreed to drop a lawsuit against Memphis Greenspace after the two parties came to an agreement about what to do with the statue and the remains, CNN reported.
The process of removing Forrest and his wife from the park is expected to take three weeks, Lee Millar, a spokesperson for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told the outlet. The remains will be reinterred in Columbia, Tennessee, on private land accessible to the public.
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“We are pleased to say that the statues and the bodies of the general and his wife will be placed somewhere that will be honored and respected as all American veterans and citizens should be respected,” Donnie Kennedy, another spokesman for the group, said last year.
“They don’t have to worry about further protests, further potential vandalism of the monuments,” Van Turner, president of Memphis Greenspace, said.
