Tennessee GOP Strips Money from Memphis for Removing Confederate Monuments

Republican state lawmakers in Tennessee punished the City of Memphis on Tuesday for taking down Confederate monuments by stripping $250,000 away from an upcoming bicentennial celebration, the AP reported. The amendment was added to a state House appropriations bill. “You remove money from a city because we removed your God from our grounds,” Rep. Antonio Parkinson said. Last year, Memphis officials removed a bust of a Confederate soldier and statues of Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis after selling public parks to a nonprofit, a move that jumped through a legal loophole. A state Republican said Memphis deserved punishment for removing Confederate relics and added “that’s what ISIS does.”