Shame On You, Memphis
Memphis city council members managed to change the names of three historic parks today. One of them is Forrest Park, named after the famous Civil War Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Although Nashville lawmakers tried to intervene, Memphis city council members thumbed their noses at them, went ahead, and changed the names by a resolution, not an ordinance. City council members feared state legislators might pass legislation stopping any efforts to rename Forrest Park to Forrest Wells Park in honor of anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells.
“Republicans in Nashville have no control over what we do,” council member Janis Fullilove snidely remarked.
According to Channel 5 news, Forrest Park was “named after a one time wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.” It is no wonder there is controversy involved when the media doesn’t get the facts right and publicizes false information. Shame on you, Memphis.
Now Forrest Park will be known as Health Sciences Park. Confederate Park downtown will hence be called Memphis Park, and Jefferson Davis Park, named after the president of the Confederacy, will be the Mississippi River Park.
“It’s a bad idea to rename historic parks,” said Sons of Confederate Veterans member Lee Millar. “Memphis has got a great history, and these parks are over 100 years old.”
Shameful. To change names that are historically relevant is to attempt to change the course of history. What’s next? Changing the names of everything named after Abraham Lincoln? Because he was not the “Great Emancipator,” like he has been portrayed to be. News flash, kids! It is truly sad to see political correctness take precedence over historic significance.
There is a chance that the parks can be renamed again, but according to city council members, the likelihood that the parks’ names will revert back to their originals isn’t very good because of the “controversy” surrounding them. Shame on you, Memphis. There is nothing controversial about it. You are banishing from public awareness the fact that many thousands of men and women died for a cause they believed in. It was a different time then, and people had different mindsets. To bury the past by pretending it didn’t exist is a horrendous exploitation of power. Shame on you, Memphis.
And speaking of being buried, the remains of the great General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are buried beneath a statue of Forrest on his steed in the park. According to the city council, they don’t care if the statue remains in Forrest, I mean, Health Sciences Park. Yeah, right. At least, not for now. No resolution about that topic has been discussed yet. Shame on you, Memphis. Your disrespect is appalling.
Dear Sirs,
Please reconsider this changing history of our ancestors is wrong…..is this the first steps to removing all monuments to Americans…You must not pick or choose….next must go Lincoln…next must go….Martin Luther King……because you cannot pick or choose what ancestry to hurt a few Americans…..Now all or none…..Because I am part of a very proud Southern Heritage…..
Thank you Sincerely,
Sharon Deskins Sparks
Memphis HAD a great history, now you apathetic lazy entitlement freaks let the idiot liberals screw that up too. LOL! What losers. We laugh at you.
Memphis once honored her Confederate patriots who defended the Southland from a large, destructive Union army. Southern Heritage and Southern Culture was something Mempians were proud of. Our Southern forefathers left us a legacy of heros that is unsurpassed. I think that the city council of Memphis is too narrow-minded, too bigotted , too ignorant and too arrogant to have any shame.
Vote these people out. They are not looking at whats best for the city, only bowing down to political liberals. History is History, and get it right. Forest was a major part of that area and the Civil War. Yes, history says he was a membor of the Klan. But History also shows he denied this as well. I am not saying he wasnt, as he was also noted in 1869 to have dissolved the klan. (history also says he joined in 1867). We can only read and go by what the history book (real history books say). What they dont tell you is, In 1875, Forrest demonstrated that his personal sentiments on the issue of race now differed from that of the Klan, and he was invited to give a speech before an organization of black Southerners advocating racial reconciliation, called the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association. At this, his last public appearance, he made what the New York Times described as a “friendly speech” during which, when offered a bouquet of flowers by a black woman, he accepted them as a token of reconciliation between the races and espoused a radically progressive (for the time) agenda of equality and harmony between black and white Americans. — But people dont seem to want to hear that. Only that he was a Klan member and hated blacks. This was far from the truth. He was a Honored Confederate Soldier, who believed is states right and the freedoms of man. He fought against the US Government (Union) for some of the exact reason we are now having problems with our current Government doing. History repeats itself people, and if we try and hide our past, good or bad, we will never learn from mistakes that were made and get it right. Stop bowing down the the politically correct liberals and stand up for what is right and your rights. Its History and it needs to be tought like it was. Not hidden and re-written.
PC abounds from ever coner of the Land. The Washington redskins?reference to God,?ok to have prayer in prison but not in our schools?. Do not
Despair my fellow southerners nothing changes history. Only the present and future is in our power to change. What those men and women did both north and south is for evermore recorded and any fair reading by future people’s will exalt these long dead heros far more than any detractors might try to rewrite those events of the Great War
Continue to fight you damn right go back no further than we are pushed back. But don’t let inevitable defeats cause a surrender and our own history will record we fought the good fight against overwhelming odds. (For those that like to find fault I always make purposeful mistakes in such submissions. So have a ball)
What the hell… I hate Memphis.
Actually, in the executive committee meeting yesterday, which was streamed live, I listened as council members discussed shipping the statue off to a nearby city, and the laughter filling the room was a clear indication that these people have no honor or conscience. I would not be surprised if the next news we hear is that they have exhumed the bodies under cover of darkness. Despicable.
My 3rd great grandfather served under Gen. N.B. Forrest in the 3rd KY., I’m proud to say.
Apparently some black Memphis politicians are showing their bigotry and racial animus instead of addressing the very real problems their community faces, akin to NAACP’s typical m.o.
Shameful, the actions of these bigots.
This is not political correctness. This is shoving totalitarianism down Memphis’ throat.
This is not political correctness. This is shoving totalitarianism down Memphis’ throat. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600435/totalitarianism
Just think, every ghetto in America is owned by the Democrats.
Good for you although talking to Memphis is talking to deaf ears and they don’t know sign language. However, Memphis should be concerned cause its just a matter of time when God will look down on Memphis like Sodom/Gomorrah.