Two Confederate War statues were removed from downtown Memphis last August, and now the city is will not receive $250,000 that was to pay for their bicentennial celebration.

State representatives and city leaders had much to stay, including state rep Raumesh Akbari, who said “This amendment, and the explanation, is hateful, it is unkind, it is un-Christian-like and it is unfair.” Akbari said this in an interview with CNN. The statues were of Civil War general and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, and the statue was removed from Health Science Park. The removal was a few years in the works because the Historical division of the city government said that, positive or not, the history behind the statues are too strong to remove.

“I think the removal of the confederate statues is wrong. They are there for a reason, and no matter what the south was fighting for, those are lives lost that people down there looked up to. Yes, many might disagree with the rights, and think that is is still promoting slavery and such, but, it is honoring a fallen hero to someone out there, so I think they should stay up in Memphis, and really, all over the South,” sophomore Jaden Albano said.

It will not be the first that a confederate statue was removed. Now, 25 different cities from Maryland to Kansas, to California to Florida have had statue removed. Most spark outbreak in the public to get them removed because of the subject they honor, the civil war. Memphis is the second city in Tennessee to remove a statue, right after Nashville’s decision to remove in December.

“The statues needed to go, they bring bad vibes. They represent slavery, and that’s over with now, and that means the statues need to go. Yes, they might be historic, but they are historic for all the wrong reasons, they need to be removed all over the south, not just in Memphis, but good for the city leaders there for making the move to get rid of them,” junior Tyler Kampen said.

To this point, there is no clear indication about the public’s reaction of the removal.