Yesterday the Tennessee House passed legislation cutting $250,000 of state funding for the bicentennial celebration of the city of Memphis in retaliation for their removal of Civil War statues. Statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis were removed last December.
The Tennessee Historical Commission had denied the city's request for a waiver from the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act so they could remove the statues. The city did an end run around the law by selling the parks to a nonprofit agency, which removed the statues.
Both statues were placed as symbols of oppression by whites over blacks. The Forrest statue was erected in 1904 during the Jim Crow era, while the Davis statue was erected in 1964 during the fight for civil rights. Cutting funds allows the white and rural Republican dominated legislature to punish mostly black and Democratic Memphis.
Sources:
--Percy