CLOSE The statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis at Fourth Bluff Park in downtown Memphis was taken down Wednesday, Dec. 21. Video by Daniel Connolly/ The Commercial Appeal
Buy Photo Only the pedestal remains of the removed statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest at Health Science Park Thursday morning. The city of Memphis sold two public parks containing Confederate monuments to a nonprofit Wednesday in a massive, months-in-the-planning operation to take the statues down overnight. (Photo: Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo
House lawmakers on Tuesday approved a last-minute amendment to remove $250,000 allocated to the city of Memphis as punishment for the removal of Confederate monuments.
The amendment, which was approved with a 56-31 vote, was introduced as a result of Memphis officials’ decision to remove two controversial statues on public property last year.
After being denied a waiver by the state Historical Commission to remove the statues, Memphis sold two public parks in December to a nonprofit, which then removed statues of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Rep. Steve McDaniel, R-Parkers Crossroads, who has been an outspoken advocate for the preservation of historical monuments, sponsored the amendment.
"What this amendment does is it removes $250,000 from the budget that is designated to go to the city of Memphis for their bicentennial celebration," he said on the House floor. "If you recall, back in December, Memphis did something that removed historical markers in the city. It was the city of Memphis that did this, and it was full knowing it was not the will of the legislature."
More: Tennessee bill that aimed to protect controversial statues killed
The Commercial Appeal's 9:01: In punishing Memphis, state lawmakers embarrassed themselves
During Tuesday's floor session, Democrats argued the amendment was vindictive. Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, called it the most "vile, racist" effort he had seen and said Republicans viewed Forrest "as if he was God."
Rep. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, called the amendment "un-Christian."
"This amendment and the explanation is hateful, it is unkind, it is un-Christian and it is unfair," she said. "Memphis is a city in this state, and I am sick of people in this House acting like it’s not."
But Republicans members in the House were unswayed.
Defending the amendment, Rep. Andy Holt, R-Dresden, argued that "bad actions" have "bad consequences."
On Wednesday, the Senate approved its version of the state budget. The $250,000 for Memphis was never in the upper chamber's version of the $37.5 billion spending plan.
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Hokieman78 on April 18th, 2018 at 15:49 UTC »
Little known fact . . . Tennessee provided more soldiers (33,000) to the Union Army than all the other 12 Confederate states combined.
that_memes_on_target on April 18th, 2018 at 15:41 UTC »
This probably isn’t a valuable comment, but my medical school wraps around one of these parks, I walk by it every day. They sent out all these warnings about the pro-statue people in town showing up for a protest. Everybody was saying “oh the neo-nazi’s are gonna protest and its gonna get ugly”, stuff like that. We were also warned to maybe not walk around that area during the time.
Police cars and tape everywhere, all day, and basically nobody showed up to protest. It makes me wonder who the politicians are even fighting for. The majority of memphis is black, the majority of memphis, black or white, when explained the whole situation, seems to say “yea whatever take it down”. Nobody cares about this dead guy, can’t stress that enough, and if it makes my neighbors happy, I don’t see why we can’t just put a statue of Elvis doing a jam session or something in the park instead, Sun Studios is literally one block over, it’d make sense.
ThatsBushLeague on April 18th, 2018 at 12:16 UTC »
For those who don't remember how Memphis went about this. Classic move.