Statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest are removed from Memphis after city sells parks

Authorities in Memphis, a city steeped in civil rights history, removed two statues of Confederate leaders on Wednesday hours after the downtown parkland where they stood was sold to a private group.

Several U.S. cities have in recent months dismantled monuments to Confederate leaders, which have become focal points for a fraught national debate over race and politics.

The removal of the statutes of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest comes three months before Memphis marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination there of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Confederate General Forrest was a slave trader and a Ku Klux Klan leader.

The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to sell the two parks and crews began working right away to remove a statue of Forrest. At the second park, a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was later taken down.

Selling the parks to a third party was a way to get around the Tennessee Historical Commission, which had previously denied the city's petition to take the statues down.

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