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| Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park in Camden, Tennessee. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Confederate heritage groups and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) do agree on at least one thing: There is a formal movement afoot to remove all references to all things Confederate from public places across the country.
Earlier this month, the SPLC launched a new initiative called "Erasing Hate," which "aims to identify and eliminate government-sanctioned symbols honoring the Confederacy."
"There are numerous government-sponsored symbols of the Confederacy that are out in the public across the country, and, quite frankly, it's time for them be removed," said SPLC founder Morris Dees. "In Montgomery, Alabama, we have a Robert E. Lee High School that wasn't even named until [Brown v. the Board of Education], the desegregation case. We have government-sponsored holidays honoring Confederate 'heroes'."
Flags, street names, building names, and statues honoring the Confederacy became public targets across the country earlier this year after a white supremacist shot and killed nine African Americans in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Last month, the Memphis City Council approved the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue in Health Sciences Park and to formally change the names of three parks that once carried names honoring the Confederacy.
The SPLC is asking citizens to identify Confederate names, symbols, and statues on public property via an online form with descriptions and photographs. SPLC will use that information to build an interactive map of the sites online. The SPLC has a similar map, the Hate Map, which shows where hate groups are operating across the country.
Read the full story:
http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/southern-poverty-law-center-to-create-map-of-confederate-symbols/Content?oid=4135555
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