Tennessee lawmakers punish Memphis for removing Confederate statues

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Republican-dominated House in Tennessee voted Tuesday to punish the city of Memphis for removing Confederate monuments by taking $250,000 away from the city that would have been used for a bicentennial celebration next year.

The retaliation came in the form of passage of a last-minute amendment attached to the House appropriations bill that triggered heated debate on the House floor and stinging rebukes from lawmakers from Memphis.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson began to call the amendment vile and racist before being cut off by boos from fellow lawmakers.

"You can boo all you want but let's call it for what it is," the Memphis representative said.

Last year the city of Memphis, which is majority black, was able to find a legal loophole to get rid of two Confederate statues and a bust by selling city parks to a nonprofit, which swiftly removed the monuments. Taken away under cover of darkness where statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a general in the confederacy, a slave owner and a leader in the Ku Klux Klan. A bust of a Confederate soldier was also removed.

Parkinson, who is African-American, said he was sick of how fellow lawmakers revered Forrest "as if he was God, as if he was an idol."

"You remove money from a city because we removed your God from our grounds," Parkinson said

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