Memphis, Confederate vets group to enter mediation over removal of statue

The City of Memphis will enter mediation with a Confederate veterans group regarding the possible removal of a statue of a Confederate general.

Memphis, Tenn., will enter mediation with the Sons of Confederate Veterans about the removal of the statue from a park in the city, Memphis City Council Attorney Allan Wade announced, according to CBS News.

The mediation comes after city leaders have said they wanted to move the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, from Health Sciences Park, a move which has been met with opposition from the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

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Wade also said leaders should postpone putting out a plan to move the statue.

A spokesman for the veterans group said the group would not support a resolution that would require the statue be moved.

In recent months, several Confederate statues have been removed across the country.

“We’re having, once again — for whatever it is, the 17th time — a major racial reckoning in America,” Yale Civil War historian David Blight told CBS News in September.

“And we don’t know exactly where this one’s going.”

The removal of Confederate statues has become a national talking point following events in Charlottesville, Va., over the summer.

White nationalist groups organized a “Unite the Right” rally in the college town in August to protest the removal of a state of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. 

The protest erupted in violence when counter-protesters clashed with the white supremacist groups, leaving one person dead and dozens injured.