Nashville Suburb Sues to Rename Streets Honoring Confederate Generals

The pedestal where the statue of Confederate General Albert Pike remains empty after it was toppled by vandals at Judiciary Square in Washington on June 20, 2020. Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

A Nashville suburb is suing the Tennessee Historical Commission over a decision that blocked the city from renaming five streets because the commission considered them “monuments” under Tennessee law.

The city of Forest Hills, approximately 10 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, filed a petition with the historical commission in April 2022 to receive a waiver to the law for name change purposes.

The waiver would have subverted the 2016 Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, which “prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is, or is located on, public property.”

The petition stated there was “a material or substantial need for a waiver based on historical or other compelling public interest, including historical accuracy.”

The streets bear the names Confederate Drive, General Forrest Court, Robert E. Lee Court, Robert E. Lee Drive, and Jefferson Davis Drive.

Commission Denies Waiver

The commission denied the city’s petition in November, and Forest Hills filed its lawsuit the following month. No other action has been taken on the matter yet in court.

The lawsuit challenges the state’s Heritage Protection Act, stating it does not apply to subdivisions built on private property before they were turned over as public streets.

“The City respectfully states that the Commission has erred in its interpretation of the Heritage Act,” the lawsuit states. “The Commission has interpreted the Heritage Act in such a way as to prevent the City from permitting its residents to decide whether to change the names of the subdivision streets without first obtaining a waiver from the Commission.”

The streets were given over to the city and are now considered public property, which according to Tennessee law makes them memorials because they are “public real property named after historical entities and figures.”

In a petition to the commission, the city stated that no individuals or businesses objected to the city’s plans in writing or at a hearing in September.

Vandalism, Confederate History, Racial Incidents

Affidavits by two city officials state that several of the street markers have been vandalized over the years, including being bent, stolen, and defaced.

The city manager also attested to receiving several complaints to rename the streets since he started working for the city, and he said the complaints increase in frequency after “public incidents involving race.”

Crews remove the torso of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, one of the country's largest remaining monuments to the Confederacy, on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., on Sept. 8, 2021. Steve Helber/AP Photo

The city argued that all of the streets have the common connection of being named after historic people related to the Civil War. The petition noted the history of slavery and abolition of slavery after the war, noting the persons named on the street signs “related to the Civil War and support for the Confederacy.”

The city also noted that the historical commission had previously approved the removal of a bust of Forrest, once located in the Tennessee Capitol, because the move “advances the compelling public interest of racial reconciliation.”

The city added that it was concerned that people would mistakenly assume the city had chosen the street names, as opposed to private developers.

The city acknowledged that earlier generations of people who developed and lived in Forest Hills had ancestors who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and likely had no issue with the public memorials.

“It is not the goal of the City to question the character of those generations or their love for their family, or to judge them in the time and circumstances in which they lived by today’s standards,“ the petition states. ”The City of Forrest Hills merely believes that the City and its current residents should not be bound by the opinions and moral judgments of previous generations, particularly when those opinions and moral judgments are universally rejected today.”

It specifically notes the street named after Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was eventually a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

In the petition, city officials state the city “is also concerned about vandalism and the potential for violence in the event of public racially charged events. Each new event brings a great number of calls to the City, and each time, the calls become more intense.”