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Nathan Bedford Forrest family sues Memphis over monument removal

The great-great grandsons of the Confederate general claim it was a desecration of his grave.

(WMC) - Descendants of Nathan Bedford Forrest filed a lawsuit against the City of Memphis, Memphis City Council and Memphis Greenspace Inc.

The group filed the suit over the removal of Forrest’s statue in Health Sciences Park last year.

The group filing the suit includes five great-great grandsons of Forrest. They claim the city council members and mayor conspired to desecrate the graves of Forrest and his wife Mary Ann Forrest and said the removal of the monument was illegal.

The bodies of the Forrests remain at Health Sciences Park with the statues removed.

The statues were removed in December 2017 after the city sold Health Sciences Park and Memphis Park (where they later removed a statue of Jefferson Davis) to Memphis Greenspace for $1,000.

The city retains that the sale and removal of the statues was perfectly legal and privately funded.

The Forrest family said the removal is in violation of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act.

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