Sharpton to Rally Memphis Blacks to Push for Renaming of Public Parks

Monica Lewis, BlackAmericaWeb.com, Aug. 9

More news stories on Southern Heritage

In downtown Memphis, two public parks have long been fixtures of the city, places that people of all races have come to know and accept as a part of the landscape.

But there is now a move afoot to remove the names of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest, president of the Confederacy and a founding father of the Ku Klux Klan, respectively, from the parks, even though there appears to be a great amount of division amongst black Memphians on whether or not a name change is necessary.

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“People ask the question, ‘What’s in a name?’“ Bailey said. “But I ask them, why do they ban Nazi symbols and not have any recognition of Adolph Hitler in Germany? Why did the United States forces pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein as their first act against tyranny?

Original article

(Posted on August 9, 2005)

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