Tennessee’s House of Representatives enacted an amendment Tuesday to punish Memphis for selling Confederate monuments to a nonprofit which proceeded to remove them by stripping the city of $250,000.
The state House voted 56-31 to strip the city of funding for its bicentennial celebration after Memphis’ sale of parks containing statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest to a nonprofit which then took them down, reported Commercial Appeal.
“If you recall, back in December, Memphis did something that removed historical markers in the city,” Tennessee Republican Rep. Steve McDaniel said at the House. “It was the city of Memphis that did this, and it was full knowing it was not the will of the legislature.”
Memphis, Tennessee, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans will enter mediation over the removal of a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and an early KKK leader, from a public park https://t.co/XM6p70nE1M pic.twitter.com/qlCYBjkYsH
— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 27, 2017
Democrats were not pleased with the amendment, with Memphis Democrat Rep. Antonio Parkinson calling it “vile, racist” and claiming Republicans viewed Confederate general and former Ku Klux Klan leader Forrest “as if he was [sic] God.”
“This amendment and the explanation is hateful, it is unkind, it is un-Christian and it is unfair,” Parkinson said. “Memphis is a city in this state, and I am sick of people in this House acting like it’s not.”
But Republican Rep. Andy Holt supported the initiative, arguing that “bad actions” have “bad consequences.”
A statue of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, stands in Memphis Park, formerly named Confederate Park, in Memphis, Tenn- pic.twitter.com/wkfRNactS4
— Boateng Duka Kofi (@DukaKofi) August 21, 2017
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