Memphis wanted to remove the statues. They asked for a waiver and they were refused.
So, the city attorney and the mayor came up with a plan. They wrote their own law, which allowed them to sell a city park and everything in it to a nonprofit organization. Under the law, the purchaser had a right to remove objects in the park that he/she had no use for. (They both are adamant that the law passes muster under state regulations. Also, the nonprofit's contract requires them to leave the park status intact.)
On Wednesday evening, they met to vote on selling the parks to a new nonprofit created by a former city council member. In the meanwhile, he arranged to have a removal crew standing ready by the Forrest statue, awaiting word of the sale. The city police also quietly deployed at the parks at the council's request, although they weren't really expecting trouble. They raised the question at the meeting, the council unanimously approved the sale, the nonprofit guy forked over two grand, and made the call. The statues are now hiding in an undisclosed location.
The Forrest statue was a really big deal to the neo-Confederates. It was erected in the park ~1904 when the city decided to make a shrine to this fucking founding-hater klukker (whom Union generals referred to as the Devil) disinterring his remains and those of his wife from the cemetery where they were originally planted, and relocating them to the park. The shrine was erected by the handmaidens of hate AKA the daughters of the confederacy. (The city wants to return the remains to the cemetery, but they'll need next-of-kin permission to do so by law. The guy who bought the park is perfectly willing to send the removed statue to the cemetery along with them.)
Good for them. They tried the standard approach and it failed, because the bigots have no intention of considering anyone else's wishes or POV.
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