MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — About 60 members of the Ku Klux Klan rallied Saturday in Memphis to protest the renaming of three Confederate parks.
The rally was peaceful, with no injuries or property damage and only one arrest for disorderly conduct, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said. The police presence was heavy in a closed-off section of downtown Memphis.
Klan members were bused to and from the protest and were relegated to a fenced-in section in front of the Shelby County courthouse. Some wore pointed white hoods and waved flags with the letters “KKK’ on them.
Police said an anti-Klan rally located in another fenced-in area about 100 yards away attracted 1,275 people throughout the day. Some chanted “KKK, go away.”
A North Carolina-based faction of the Klan came to protest after the City Council voted to rename Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, Jefferson Davis Park and Confederate Park. Forrest was a slave trader, Confederate cavalryman and member of the first version of the Klan.
Bystander Veronica Milton, 37, viewed the protest as an educational experience, though she described the Klan’s white supremacist message as sad.
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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Police in Chattanooga say they are investigating after a woman’s body was found in the Tennessee River.
Police said in a statement that two fishermen found the body of 57-year-old Deborah Underhill Friday evening on the south bank of the Tennessee River near Patton Chapel Road.
Her cause of death wasn’t immediately determined.
Police say the investigation continues.
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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Authorities in Tennessee have found the body of a man who was thrown from an experimental aircraft while an instructor was teaching him to fly.
Bradley County Interim Fire Chief Troy Spence says search crews located the deceased student pilot at about 11:45 a.m. Saturday. He declined to release the man’s name.
Collegedale Municipal Airport employee Lowell Sterchi told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the man was being trained by an instructor in his Zodiac 601 aircraft on Friday when the canopy came off. The instructor also was not identified.
The man’s seat belt was not fastened and he was thrown out of the plane.
Sterchi said the instructor landed the plane and was not physically hurt. He says the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified.
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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A group that favors allowing whiskey distilleries in Chattanooga has begun collecting petition signatures in an effort to take the issue to voters.
Chris Smith, a spokesman for Let Hamilton Distill, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press (bit.ly/14sdZTb) early last week that about 1,500 signatures had been collected. The group needs 14,000 for the effort to go to referendum.
Whether to allow distilleries in Hamilton County started getting attention last year when Chattanooga Whiskey Co. began making Chattanooga whiskey, which is distilled in Lawrenceburg, Ind., due to prohibition-era statutes.
Company President Joe Ledbetter has said distilling the product locally would mean more than a dozen jobs and $150,000 annually in tax and tourism dollars.
The petition asks that the Hamilton County Commission allow residents to decide the matter by ballot.
Smith said politicians have argued for decades over whether there should be alcohol production, and now is the time for the public to take action.
