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Judge Orders That Memphis Confederate Statues Can’t Be Sold

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A judge told a nonprofit Monday that it could not sell three Confederate statues it had previously bought from the Memphis, Tenn. city government.

Ellen Hobbs Lyle, chancellor of Davidson County in Tennessee, notified Memphis Greenspace that it could not sell statues depicting Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Captain J. Harvey Mathes, and Ku Klux Klan leader Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, reported The Seattle Times.

“It was just an outrage the city took the statues down in the first place,” Lee Millar, spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told WREG. “No monuments or history should be destroyed or taken down.”

The Memphis city government sold the statues and the parks in which they were erected to Greenspace in December for $2,000. The statues could be removed by the nonprofit after the parks became private property, according to the city. But the Tennessee Historical Commission will determine the legality of the decision at a February or March hearing.

“We, Memphis Greenspace, are continuing to do exactly as the court ordered today,” Van Turner, president of the organization, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “We promise to fulfill our mission by preserving the statues, ensuring the safety of our parks, and activating our plan through collaborative programming and community engagement.”

TheDCNF reached out to the Memphis city government for comment, but received none in time for press.

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