MEMPHIS, Tenn. — What sits at the heart of Collierville has reminders of its controversial past. Collierville's town park was once known as Confederate Park.
In 2017, the name changed to Town Square Park, but there are still symbols that some want gone.
Town Square Park on a peaceful summer day sets the scene for an area of bliss. But where some find beauty, others see a beast.
“It is a confederate marker,” said Nicole Li, a Collierville Community Justice organizer.
It is cemented in Collierville's Town Square Park, a place for unity where division creeps around the corner.
“It just makes me feel like I have a slap in the face. That’s why I fight so hard to remove it,” said Sydney Morris, another Collierville Community Justice organizer.
“It needs to stay there. There’s no reason. We’re in the south, okay,” said Evan Leake, Consignment Music owner.
Morris is a high school student, and Li is a recent high school graduate. They both are organizers with Collierville Community Justice, an up and coming grassroots organization.
“We believe it is problematic because it promotes this distorted loss cause perspective on southern history which is historically inaccurate and misleading,” said Li. “It portrays confederate soldiers as heroic instead of traders. It promotes this idea that slavery was a benign institution."
Across the Square, Leake whose family claims the land, has another view.
“It’s not a confederate monument. It’s a memorial to the battle of Collierville and it honors the dead whether they were north, south, black, or white. It didn’t matter,” said Leake. “It was the Daughters of the Confederacy that put it out there. There were no Daughters of the Union who came out here to do anything like that.”
The stone is now grounded in a battle of its own.
“We started the campaign last summer and we’ve had our member of Collierville Community Justice address the board and alderman on these issues,” said Li. “Have the marker moved to a private location.”
“They say they’re inclusive, but how can you be inclusive and have a blatantly racist marker that obviously is rude to minorities,” asked Morris.
For some, it is a marker of the past with a statute of limitations.
“It’s time to get over your offense. It really is. I don’t hold anybody responsible for what happened back then because all those people are dead. There’s nobody around. There’s no slaves around here,” said Leake. “I’ve never seen that monument out there slap anybody or say anything ugly to anybody ever...It’s not hurting anybody. If it does, then you’re a wimp.”
The different sides find themselves at a crossroads.
“We’re not going away….We’ll be here as long as that problematic symbol stays here,” said Li.
“If that’s free for them to complain about it, it’s free for it to be over there,” said Leake.
Free. It's a word of obtainment in the past that continues to define the future.
Collierville Community Justice plans to attend the town board meeting next Monday to address their concerns once again.
We also reached out to the town's government as well as organizations in support of the monument.
We have not received a response.