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Confederate Monuments: Should They Stay or Go?

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August 22, 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. Tami Sawyer, 35, is a community activist and director of Diversity & Cultural Competence at Teach For America Memphis. She has been one of the leading voices in Memphis demanding city leaders to quickly remove the bronze statues before the city commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. The civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. "The Confederate monuments in Memphis and across the country should come down because they represent an inaccurate history," Sawyer said. "They represent an America where slavery and racial oppression were allowed to win and that is not the truth. And in a city such as Memphis, that is 65 percent black, these structures that were built as tools of oppression and intimidation should not be held in reverence in our town." (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)
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Yoshi James
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Confederate Monuments: Should They Stay or Go?
August 22, 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. Tami Sawyer, 35, is a community activist and director of Diversity & Cultural Competence at Teach For America Memphis. She has been one of the leading voices in Memphis demanding city leaders to quickly remove the bronze statues before the city commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. The civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. "The Confederate monuments in Memphis and across the country should come down because they represent an inaccurate history," Sawyer said. "They represent an America where slavery and racial oppression were allowed to win and that is not the truth. And in a city such as Memphis, that is 65 percent black, these structures that were built as tools of oppression and intimidation should not be held in reverence in our town." (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)