Parks controversy leads to prayer | News

Opponents of a city council vote to rename three Memphis parks are hoping that decision will be reversed.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans held a prayer vigil inside the Scottish Rite Temple across from Forrest Park to pray Saturday.

Last month the Memphis City Council voted to change the names of three Memphis parks honoring Confederates and the Confederacy. The statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest on his horse sits in the park now named Health Sciences Park.  The three confederate named parks still have new names after the Memphis City Council refused to bow to intrusion from Nashville.

"This prayer vigil is just to bring all the park supporters together in a positive effort to pray for a good resolution to this parks controversy that we don't need to have the parks renamed," said Lee Millar with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Millar hopes the city council will do the right thing and leave the parks alone.

The House on Monday voted to approve a bill to bar local governments from renaming parks or monuments honoring Tennessee's military figures.

According to the Associated Press, it is a move the sponsor says is aimed at preventing shifting views and changing "demographics" from erasing memorials to historical figures from the Civil War and other conflicts. More on that here.