- A proposal to change the park names has been sent to the City Council. Critics also want the city to remove park statues ...
And people dare to accuse us of re-fighting the war and not "letting it go."
Posted on 07/25/2005 7:54:00 AM PDT by SmithL
NASHVILLE - The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to donate at least $10,000 to be used in efforts to fight a proposal to change the names of three "Confederate" parks in downtown Memphis.
Nearly 1,000 SCV members approved the "emergency donation" at the group's annual convention, which concluded Saturday in Nashville, according to a statement released by the SCV.
The $10,000 represents the "first installment of cash" and will be used for "any and all purposes including litigation," the statement says.
"This outrageous affront to our Southern heritage will be met with every financial and legal means available to the Sons of Confederate Veterans," said SCV Commander in Chief Denne Sweeney. "The park renamings and monument removals are tantamount to an ethnic cleansing."
At issue are the names of Confederate, Jefferson Davis and Forrest parks.
A proposal to change the park names has been sent to the City Council. It was reviewed Thursday by the Center City Commission, a quasi-governmental board that promotes downtown development.
The commission approved a resolution asking the City Council to consider the proposal but stopped short of recommending the name changes.
Critics also want the city to remove park statues of Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who after the Civil War was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Removing the statues was not part of the resolution sent to the City Council.
Chartered more than 100 years ago as a fraternal organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers, the Columbia, Tenn.-based SCV now has more than 30,000 members.
Dixie bump
I spoke to my brother who lives in Memphis and he told me there is "no way" that the names of these parks will be changed. As far as "Forrest Park" is concerned, the land where the park is located belongs to the Forrest estate and the understanding when the park was donated to the city was that Gen. Forrest and his wife would be buried there and the name of the park would be "Forrest."
Change the name and/or move the graves and the city loses the park.
Next case...
PS I wonder what the ancestors of black Americans who served in the CSA think about all this?
My advice to the SCV is stick to promoting positive appreciation of the ordinary Confederate soldiers and heroes like Lee and leave the virulent doctrines to people like the League of the South and the Lew Rockwell crowd.
Shelby County commissioner Walter Bailey is the one pushing for this. He wants to erase all vestiges of the Confederacy and slavery form Memphis. If he wants to do this, why not push to change the name of the city of Memphis. Memphis was named for Memphis, Egypt. It was part of a country that ENSLAVED people, probably Jews, and more than likely black Africans that weren't Egyptian. So I vote to change the name of this racist, slaveholding city to something else. Maybe Bailey could change it to Willieworld, in honor to the current city mayor Willie Herenton. I hope not. I'm sick of Bailey.
BTW, Bailey, along with fellow commissioners Cleo Kirk and Julian Bolton are fighting tooth and nail to keep their high paying part time jobs as county commissioners. There was a referendum item that allowed voters to vote on term limits. It was a mandat vote. 81% of the voters passed the referendum. Now, Bailey says it was unconstitutional and is using public money to take the case all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court in hopes of keeping his "job". He, along with the other two are going against the will of the people. When my wife and I leave Memphis, it will be because of people of Herenton Bailey, Kirk, and Bolton. In three years, we hope to tell them, the city's all yours. You can have it. Hopefuly, Bailey, Kirk, and Bolton will be out of power long before that.
Wake me when America renames all those landmarks named after Senator Byrd.
And people dare to accuse us of re-fighting the war and not "letting it go."
Oh how many decry any signs of pride and respect for their war dead the south may have, it must be eradicated.
Yet, the same people glory in rubbing insult after insult in the faces of the south. Everywhere one looks there are union monuments to that war. The Battle Hymn Of The Republic is sang with glee. Ever listen to the words? "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored" That vintage was the life blood of my dead southerner ancestors.
The very ones whom condemn any sign of southern pride or that the Confederacy ever existed also dearly love to insult southerners at every opportunity.
Tenn.-based SCV now has more than 30,000 members.
That's about two Corps strength, plenty 'nuf to accomplish the objective.
" people who declare the national hero Lincoln as a power mad tyrant just a little worse than Joe Stalin."
He was.
Well, lots of us here in Memphis have a little different take than your brother... This rag-tag self-righteous group of "leaders" of the black community here were handed all the tools they need last month by the SCOTUS decision on New London. And believe me, these land-grabbing, tax-anything-that-moves (or doesn't) bunch of crooked politicians won't hesitate to try and use that decision.
free dixie,sw
do NOT hold your breath.
ANY reading of the FACTS about the real lincoln indicates to anyone with a brain,and who is NOT a REVISIONIST FOOL, that lincoln was a TYRANT & WAR CRIMINAL.
free dixie,sw
That just isn't true and you know it.
The NAACP started this shoving match because of their internal organizational needs and because they were trying to get leverage with the national Democratic Party by using "bloody shirt" issues like the Battle Flag to spike black voter turnout, with rhetoric about "them" and "we know what kind of people they are!" It was pure race-baiting, and they'd have done it whether SCV types engaged them or were silent as the tombs.
It is well documented that Lincoln and the Republican party stepped into power on the issues of slavery, westward expansion of free labor, and government/business partnership to attempt to form a mild type of early fascism.
When it became apparent to Lincoln that the Southern states would not acquiesce to his demands for continuation of taxation on their productions, it became necessary for him to implement a naval blockade which began at Ft. Sumter and in Florida. Well before he took office, he knew that it would be necessary to exterminate the class of people in the South that had their life assets invested in slave crop production. Even before he took office he was privately telling the military to be prepared to take back US installations. Lincoln seemed to believe that war was inevitable, and he made it so.
Following this he raised an army and invaded Virginia.
His effort to "preserve the union" resulted in over a million military and civilian deaths which was the worst loss of life in the history of this country.
Joe Stalin did the same for the Russian people, only on a much larger scale.
Maybe if they hadn't opened up all the asylums in the 1970s and released the kooks into the community we'd be spared this sort of idiocy.
Lincoln's policies were not so far different from those of Washington, Hamilton, or Madison. You may disagree with their policies but calling tariffs and public works "fascism" is a lie and an insult that's not mitigated by the weasel word "mild."
If you think comparing Lincoln to Stalin is going to win any support for your sorry cause, you are terribly wrong. The more you try to refight the war with rubbishy neo-confederate propaganda the less support there'll be for the confederate flag and confederate parks.
or are you just being a "LITTLE TROLL"????
free dixie,sw
**exalts the nation above the individual, with the federal apparatus being supreme.
**engages in government regulated economic and social regimentation.
**engages in syndicalist corporatism.
**uses violence, propaganda, and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition.
**stresses loyalty to a single leader.
**implements totalitarian systems.
And you say........Lincoln's policies were not so far different from those of Washington, Hamilton, or Madison. You may disagree with their policies but calling tariffs and public works "fascism" is a lie and an insult that's not mitigated by the weasel word "mild."
How many examples of the above were introduced by Lincoln in the time period 1861-1865?
When you call Lincoln and the Republicans fascists, even "mild" fascists all intellectual moderation has gone out the window. When you compare Lincoln to Stalin you show yourself to be either a louse or a moron. You deserved a reprimand from someone, and I happened to see it first.
I notice that you are also calling on a horde of your buddies -- even some who aren't allowed to post -- to get you out of the mess you created, so don't act as though my refering your moronic post to two other people was something out of place.
Some of you really are crazy. Squattie for one. And when you talk as you have you run the risk of people drawing the same conclusion about you.
I've been through all this year after year. I try to be responsible and moderate, but real examples of malice and stupidity set me off. I don't defend everything Lincoln or the Republicans did but calling them fascists and Stalinists is really inexcusable.
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