Sheryl Guinn, president of the Nashville chapter of the NAACP, grew up in the city and has long been surrounded by symbols of the Confederacy. So she’s quite familiar with Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Tennessean slave trader, Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader who’s been honored with a bust in the state capitol for the past 43 years.
The NCAA could force it’s removal quite easily by refusing to schedule any NCAA event in the state until it is removed.
lol remember when Republicans decided that their best electoral choice was to become the party of racists after a hundred years of being the party of liberal race policy?
I bet if you went back in time to the 1930s and told everyone that in 40 years the Democrats were going to embrace civil rights, everyone would have thought that meant an era where all the political parties were against racism. Oh hell naw, Republicans have no qualms.
The TN state GOP wants to keep on a place of honor a bust of a man who was a traitor to the United States of America, and a buyer and seller of human beings, and a rapist, and a war criminal.
And they erupt when a player “takes a knee.”
Lot of a@@holes in the TN GOP.
Defund the Confederacy.
So, is old Nate in a special Famous Traitorous Racists of Tennessee gallery?
“They have never, never wanted us to forget that we were always property…"
This.
Everything you need to know about the GOP base in a single sentence.
The Civil War never ended. NEVER ENDED.
Yes, it’s called the Republican Party.
Seriously, they just want things like they’d be if there was no War of Northern Aggression.
Moving forward into the past.
With respect to that descendant of Forest trying to “contextualize” the bust, the point isn’t to have a conversation about how various public figures in history were “flawed.” You don’t need a statue to do that. That’s what history books are for. The point is that having a bust of Nathan Bedford Forest in a public state house is just about as big of a Fuck You to the state’s African American citizens as you can think of. And those GOP reps know it. And they know their base knows it.
So Forrest was a great man, with some flaws. Evidently, for today’s GOP, engaging in violent insurrection against the government in defense of slavery was not one of the flaws.
Headline is related
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“‘See that bust up there?’” his imagined conversation goes. “‘Some people think this man was a great hero. Well, he was a brilliant military leader, but here, let me tell what I think is wrong with this man, why I think he was flawed — like we’re all flawed, but his flaws were pretty darn great. Let’s talk about his flaws.’”
That’s a decent argument for historical figures who are honored for their contributions to society despite their personal participation in deeply problematic aspects of the society at the time. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson come to mind.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a motherfucking slave trader, traitor, and racial terrorist who the Tennessee legislature is honoring for precisely those qualities.
ETA: I forgot to include “war criminal.”
Just makes me wonder who Nathan Bedford’s bust is keeping which more deserving, more contemporary Tennessean from having their bust in the Capitol?
“B-b-but we’re the party of Lincoln! The Democrats are the slavers!”
See January 6. Just “patriots” protesting.
Great GQP strategy this this won’t energize the black vote in 2022 at all
An attorney for Forrest’s descendants, Edward Phillips, articulated a common argument to TPM: The bust should stay in the Capitol in order to spur discussion on the state’s history.
‘k’
He imagined an African American father speaking to his children.
James Earl Ray.