MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee nonprofit group has handed over statues of Confederate leaders Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, two years after they were removed from public parks in Memphis, officials said Tuesday.
The statues of Forrest and Davis have been given to Forrest’s descendants and the Sons of Confederate Veterans “to display them as they wish,” City of Memphis legal officer Bruce McMullen said.
The statues’ location was not disclosed, but they could be re-erected at some point. However, as part of the agreement to hand over the monuments, the veterans’ group is not allowed to put the statues back up in Memphis or Shelby County, said Van Turner, president of Greenspace Inc., the private nonprofit that helped bring down the statues.
Private donations helped pay for transfer of the heavy statues on large trucks at a remote location, Turner said.
“We’re talking several tons,” Turner said. “So, it was an operation.”