Sharpton joins fight to rename Memphis’ Confederate parks

He arrived in Memphis on Saturday to join a rally protesting the names of Confederate, Forrest and Jefferson Davis parks. He said he’s offended that some people find it acceptable “that public property can be used to glorify and sanitize people that were part of a movement that was based on racism and murder.”

“We cannot tell our kids to stop participating in self-degrading stuff and to stop desecrating our community but tell them it’s all right for the public park to have statues of people that absolutely was for the desecration of our people,” he said.

Sharpton said he was invited by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition of Memphis to join the protest. He said he’s not being paid for attending.

As Sharpton and others touted renaming the parks, others held a rally opposing changing the park names.

Two other groups — Citizens to Save Our Parks and Sons of Confederate Veterans — urged people to stay away from both events.

The Rev. Dwight Montgomery, president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who organized a prayer summit this week in response to the park controversy, said Friday that he wouldn’t attend either event.

It’s not because he doesn’t think the parks should be renamed, but he said he thinks there are other battles, like TennCare, that they should be fighting now.

“I cannot appreciate the names of those parks …. The negative things that are happening have nothing to do with parks,” he said.