No more Robert E. Lee Drive? Battle over Confederate street names spills into court

From Robert E. Lee Drive to General Forrest Court, several streets in the city of Forest Hills have long been named for Confederate leaders, but that could change following a judge's decision.

The wealthy satellite city in Davidson County last year sued the Tennessee Historical Commission to change six of its Confederate-named streets after residents said they were fed up with frequent vandalism to street signs.

Forest Hills says it has the right to rename its subdivision streets since they were built and named by developers on private property in the 1950s. The state, however, contends that the streets are public “memorials” as defined by the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act.

The battle has now spilled into the courtroom where Davidson County Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal is set to decide one question: Can subdivision streets that were named by private developers be considered public memorials under state law?

Tennessee’s Heritage Protection Act, passed in 2013, generally prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial on public property unless approved by the state’s 29-member historical commission.

But the law is vague as to how it applies to private property that is now public.

Arguing in Davidson County Chancery Court on Tuesday, attorney L. Marshall Albritton, representing Forest Hills, said city leaders at the time signed off on street names that were chosen by developers, but they were never officially dedicated.

The names include: Confederate Drive, Robert E. Lee Drive, Robert E. Lee Court, Jefferson Davis Drive, Jefferson Davis Court and General Forrest Court.

“These private developers were entitled to name the streets anything they’d like to name them,” he said.

Albritton said the situation in Forest Hills, with its subdivisions, is different from Nashville streets — such as Rosa L. Park Boulevard and Rep. John Lewis Way — that were publicly renamed and dedicated in recent years.

But attorney Amanda Callihan, representing the historical commission, said the law doesn’t specify a timeframe and that the streets can be considered memorials since they’re now public property.

“(A public dedication) is not the only way a street could become a public memorial,” she said.

The chancellor is expected to issue a written ruling in the case on a later date. If she rules in the city’s favor, Forest Hills can move ahead with a separate petition with the historical commission to officially change its street names. Forest Hills may have a better chance for approval since the threshold would be lower if the streets are not considered memorials.

The issue comes as a growing number of cities are reconsidering Confederate memorials.

Nashville drew national attention in 2021 after the busts of Confederate General and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest along with U.S. Admirals David Farragut and Albert Gleaves were removed from the Tennessee state Capitol and delivered to the Tennessee State Museum. The Forrest bust was the center of years protests.

The state last year granted a Williamson County petition to remove the Confederate flag from its county seal, but the effort was put on hold following a lawsuit from the Spring Hill-based Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter.

Gaining state approval to remove a monument or memorial is generally challenging.

In 2016, the Heritage Protection Act was amended to require a two-thirds majority vote from the commission, making it even more difficult to make changes. The commission has approved a handful of cases in more than a dozen petitions reviewed under the law in recent years.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Forest Hills near Nashville fights to change Confederate street names