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Confederate Monuments: Should They Stay or Go?
Confederate Monuments: Should They Stay or Go?
August 29, 2017 - Following the August 12 events in Charlottesville, VA, where a white nationalist rally left 34 people injured and one person dead, 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer, urgent calls have been made for the removal of Confederate statues and monuments. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's 'Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy' report, there are at least 1,503 Confederate symbols in public spaces, including monuments, statues, markers and plaques. Three of those monuments are in Shelby County, two of which include the Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest statues in city parks in downtown Memphis. Tennessee Representative Johnnie Turner (D-District 85), 77, a civil rights advocate, says the Confederate monuments should come down because they represent hatred and bigotry. "They are reminders that one race of people considers itself to be superior to another. They speak to me as an individual to be against all that I believe America was established and built upon and that is: the Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal," Turner said. "The statues and the symbols says that we're not because the persons who are being depicted are those who did not think we were equal and acted accordingly. They are symbols of our past in a very negative way." (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)

