Man Flies Confederate Flag, Shouts About Communism As Memphis Moves KKK Wizard’s Memorial

Memphis, Tennessee, is finishing up the removal of a statue honoring the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, but some people clinging to the idea of the Confederacy over a hundred years later are making fools out of themselves as it happens.

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Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer came out to talk to press gathered at the park where a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest once stood, marking the grave he shares with his wife. 

Shortly before speaking, she was forced to remove a number of small Confederate flags that had been put up on the fence surrounding the site in protest of the final removal of the statue’s pedestal and the bones underneath.

A volunteer named George Johnson, originally identified as a member of the construction crew, took issue with this as well, and allegedly threatened violence against Sawyer before the press conference began. He then spent the entire time walking back and forth behind her, waving a Confederate flag, singing Confederate tunes, and calling her a communist as she tried to speak to the press.

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“I came out here to give y’all a statement and say that this was a powerful moment—“ Sawyer told the press.

“It’s a communist moment,” Johnson interjected from the other side of the gate.

“I was going to connect it to Tulsa. I was going to connect it to the Memphis massacre,” she continued. “You know who else has been called a communist? They called Martin Luther King a communist.”

This man, part of the construction crew, has been harassing and yelling at Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer as she came to give an interview to the media. pic.twitter.com/bwz1mJs1Fu

— Chris Luther (@cluther_wmc5) June 1, 2021

Johnson later attempted to drown Sawyer out by singing “Dixie Land,” but she kept speaking. “Guess what? Dixie is dead,” she said. “And it was killed by the descendants of Black people.”

Sawyer also used the opportunity to point out this man’s behavior only goes to show that we are nowhere near living in a post-racial society, and that “this hatred and this racism is large and loud.”

This construction crew was hired and paid for by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner and President of Memphis Greenspace, the non-profit that owns the park, says he wants the man, identified as George “K-Rack” Johnson, to be removed. pic.twitter.com/MTtHXO4El0

— Chris Luther (@cluther_wmc5) June 1, 2021

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People on Twitter were inclined to agree.

All the same, the work continues. The statue is gone. The pedestal will be removed. The bodies will be relocated. And hopefully, this country’s confounding tradition of honoring racist traitors is finally in its long, long overdue death throes.

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*First Published: June 3, 2021, 7:35 am