Moment Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest who headed the Ku Klux Klan and his late wife are EXHUMED from their Memphis burial site

• The bodies of General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife were exhumed from a Memphis park this week 
• Their remains were transported to the National Confederate Museum in Columbia, Tennessee 
• The move resulted from a compromise with nonprofit Memphis Greenspace, who called for Bedford Forrest's remains to be taken away from the park, and a pro-Confederacy group 
• Sons of Confederate Veterans sued Greenspace after it moved the statue of Forrest that stood over his remains in December 2017 
• The group agreed to drop the suit if Greenspace allowed the bodies to be exhumed and moved to the museum
•  Health Sciences Park in Memphis was a flashpoint for Black Lives Matter protests last year 

A Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan 'Grand Wizard' has been exhumed and moved from a park where a statue of him once stood in Memphis, Tennessee.

The bodies of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, notorious for the massacre of 300 black Union soldiers after they surrendered, and his wife are being moved from Health Sciences Park in Memphis to a museum dedicated to the Confederacy located 200 miles away in a agreement made between the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a rival non-profit organization.

Health Sciences Park was a flashpoint for Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year, with supporters' outraged by the monument to Bedford Forrest, and his memorial. Pro-Confederate protesters also attended the site to show their support for keeping Bedford Forrest in place.  

The exhumation, which was finally was carried out on Wednesday although it will take several weeks for all of the building work, including the removal of a plinth, to be removed. Building work continued on Friday, with construction workers snapped carting away wheelbarrows filled with rubble. 

The move was more than two years in the making following the December 2017 removal of Forrest's statue, which stood over his grave, and subsequent lawsuit by the Sons of Confederate Veterans protesting the change. 

Pictured taken at the site show construction engineers hard at work as they carefully removed the plinth and also the remains of the Confederate General. 

The pro-Confederacy group then sued non-profit Memphis Greenspace on the grounds the removal violated the state's cemetery law and Heritage Protection Law, blocking the exhumation and creating a legal quagmire.

But a judge in Nashville ruled that the park was in fact privately operated by the non-profit, and that the statue had therefore been removed legally. 

The Sons of Confederate Veterans only agreed to drop its statue lawsuit with Greenspace if they disinterred the bodies of Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery. They will be taken, along with the statue, to the National Confederate Museum at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee. 

'The details got worked out to everyone's satisfaction, so there was no need to continue the lawsuit,' Lee Millar, spokesperson for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told WREG.

Van Turner, of Memphis Greenspace, said: 'They don't have to worry about further protests, further potential vandalism of the monuments.'

The National Confederate Museum, which is owned and operated by the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, 'was designed to resemble a large carriage house, one that might accent the style and age of historic Elm Springs,' according to the museum's website. 

'The interior of the museum features a spacious gift shop and lobby, a research library, and two exhibit halls. The offices of the SCV General Headquarters were also incorporated into the new building. In total, the museum building has 18,500 square feet of usable space with unfinished shell space that can be used for future growth.'

Visitors to Forrest's soon-to-be new eternal resting place will be able to observe Confederate-era weaponry like cannons and muskets, flags sewn and produced during the Confederacy's existence, and other items of Confederate historical importance.

'No government funding was used in the construction of this building,' the museum's website reads. 

'Nor will government funding will be used in the operation of the museum. This means no politically-correct politician or justice warrior can dictate what can be displayed in the museum or how it shall be interpreted. This museum is owned and operated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and all of the exhibits will be created by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.'

Memphis Greenspace previously considered an effort to ban the statue from ever being erected again in the state of Tennessee but abandoned the idea under the agreement.

'As an American, as a defender of the Constitution, it is their right to do so, to freely express their views,' Turner said. 'It's my right as an American to not support that, to not visit it.'

'In all likelihood, they’ll never see me there, but that’s what they’ve decided to do, and it’s their right to do so,' he added. 

Workers must dismantle the statue's pedestal before they can disinter the Forrests' remains.

A heavy crane was positioned nearby as workers began taking apart the pedestal on Tuesday. The entire process could take weeks. 

As Sawyer spoke to the press, she was interrupted by protester George 'K-Rack' Johnson, leader of Confederate 901, a Tennessee-based organization that has tried to prevent efforts to remove Confederate-era monuments and symbols.

Johnson paced a few feet from her behind a fence waving a Confederate flag and singing Dixie, which the councilwoman called a racist song.

'My ancestors picked cotton while his ancestors beat and raped my ancestors,' Sawyer told the assembled media as Johnson continued singing.

Sawyer then raised her voice so as to be heard above Johnson's singing and said: 'Dixie is dead, and it was killed by the descendants of black people.'

When Sawyer told the assembled media members that 'this is a powerful moment,' Johnson said: 'It's a communist moment.'

Sawyer did not speak directly to Johnson, though she did try to refute his claims as she addressed the media.

She told reporters that Martin Luther King Jr, James Baldwin, the Black Panthers, and others in the civil rights movement were accused of being communists. 

The park has been the site of Black Lives Matter protests and activists have long called for the removal of the statue and the remains, painting their slogan around the monument last summer. 

The tree-lined park is next to the University of Tennessee's medical school and a community college on Union Avenue, a busy street leading in and out of downtown Memphis. 

It is another example of how cities and activists have taken steps in recent years to get rid of statues and monuments of historical figures who supported the South's secession and led the fight against the North, from Gen. Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.

Forrest sold slaves in Memphis and served in the Confederate army as a cavalry general. In April 1864, Forrest's troops attacked Fort Pillow in northwest Tennessee and massacred 300 black Union soldiers.

Northern newspaper reports referred to the battle as an atrocity.

Historians said he later became an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, though some of Forrest's supporters dispute that. Forrest's critics call him a violent racist.

The remains of Forrest and his wife were moved from a Memphis cemetery and buried under the statue of the former Memphis City Council member in 1904. 

NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST, A SLAVE-OWNING CONFEDERATE GENERAL WHO HEADED THE KKK 

Prior to becoming the first Grand Wizard of the KKK in 1867, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general who was blamed for the Fort Pillow Massacre, in which some 300 African-American Union soldiers were slaughtered after they surrendered.

A longtime slave trader, Forrest had grown rich in the years leading up to the Civil War, but was forced to look for work after the Confederate defeat. 

He later became president of the Marion & Memphis Railroad, which ultimately went bankrupt under his leadership.

Forrest is often credited with founding the KKK, which was really formed by six Confederate veterans in Tennessee in 1866. 

He joined shortly thereafter and was given the position of 'Grand Wizard,' which was taken from his wartime nickname, 'The Wizard of the Saddle.'

Forrest publicly denied being affiliated with the KKK while still claiming to sympathize with its membership, which was famously blamed for racist lynchings and similar tactics. 

He later attempted to dissolve the Klan and ordered members to destroy robes and hoods, but few followed his directives, according to Wyn Craig Wade's 1987 book, 'The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America.'

Several Southern cities have removed memorials to Forrest in recent years, including Memphis, Tennessee, where he was buried following his death in 1877. 

Memphis newspapers reported that his funeral procession was over two miles long.

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