Damaged historical marker at former slave market rededicated Downtown
Helario Reyna (left) and Tim Huebner raise a rededicated plaque outside Calvary Episcopal Church in Downtown Memphis on Wednesday, April 7. The two-year-old historical marker noting the location of the Downtown slave market owned by Nathan Bedford Forrest was snapped off at its base and broken during the night on July 18, 2020. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
Rev. Scott Walters speaks during a rededication ceremony on Wednesday, April 7, of a historical marker noting the location of the Downtown slave market owned by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The marker stands at the southwest corner of Adams Avenue and B.B. King Boulevard near a 1950s-era historical marker that noted the land was the site of Forrest's Memphis home. That marker made no mention of the slave market. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
Tim Huebner speaks at the rededication Wednesday, April 7, of a marker noting the location of the Downtown slave market owned by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The marker was erected as a response to a 1950s-era historical marker that failed to mention how Forrest made his fortune. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
Calvary Episcopal Church held a Holy Eucharist in Calvary Park in observance of the Feast of Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday, April 7, to rededicate a historical marker at the former site of a slave market run by Nathan Bedford Forrest.
The two-year-old historical marker, which noted the Downtown Memphis location of the former slave market, was snapped off at its base and broken in July 2020. It had replaced a 1950s-era marker that noted the land was the site of Forrest’s Memphis home but made no mention of the slave market.
The new marker includes the memories of Horatio Eden, a slave who was sold as a child from Forrest’s yard:
“We were all kept in these rooms, but when an auction was held or buyers came, we were brought out and paraded two or three around a circular brick walk in the center of the stockade. The buyers would stand nearby and inspect us as we went by, stop us and examine us.”
The marker was reinstalled during the service at the church in Downtown Memphis.
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