Memphis City Council passed a resolution Tuesday to remove the remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife from a city park, but the Confederate general's family apparently will have the final say.
Forrest's remains and statue have become an issue in Memphis since the June shooting deaths of nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
The deaths sparked the South Carolina state legislature this week to approve removing the Confederate flag from its state grounds,
according to NBC News.
Forrest was a controversial figure during the Civil War. He was a millionaire business owner and high-ranking Confederate Army officer who went on to become a prominent figure in the formation of the Ku Klux Klan,
according to CivilWar.org.
WREG-TV reported that removing Forrest's statue needs a separate ordinance from removing his remains and would need to be read before council three times before it can be approved.
Elmwood Cemetery agreed to help remove the remains of Forrest and his wife from the park, but did not want the bodies.
"It's time to look forward to the future, not backward to the past," said Memphis city councilman Myron Lowery, who spearheaded the movement against Forrest.
Lee Millar, a spokesman for the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, told WREG-TV that Forrest's statue and remains shouldn't be moved because of the Charleston shooting.
"I think it's disgusting that people use the shooting in Charleston and use those victims to forward their own agenda and join this anti-Confederate hysteria that's going on," said Millar. "To attack something like that now I feel is just really misguided."
Millar told the
Memphis Commercial Appeal that Forrest's family would object to the move along with the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Memphis city council attorney Allan Wade told the newspaper that city officials would need to win over the family for the move to actually take place.