How in the name of human decency can a governor of one of our 50 states proclaim a desire to honor the memory of a Ku Klux Klan leader?
That’s what happened in Tennessee, where Gov. Bill Lee signed a proclamation honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, a onetime Confederate general … who also happened to be a slave trader and a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
This is disgraceful in the extreme. Lee’s declaration has drawn rebuke, understandably, from Democrats but also from fellow Republicans, such as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
“This is wrong,” Cruz said on Twitter. “Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general & delegate to the 1868 Democratic convention. He was also a slave trader 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK. Tennessee should not have an official day honoring him. Change the law.”
Cruz also said he doesn’t necessarily disagree with honoring Confederate soldiers, but that’s another topic for another day.
Any law that sanctions such commemoration of individuals who took part in brutality against fellow human beings, such as the Klan, must be repealed.
Gov. Lee said he was following the law. Are you kidding? Does the law require a governor to honor someone who sanctioned the killing of others because of their race?
Disgraceful.
Forrest was not honored because he was a Clan member, he was honored because of his leadership……. he was just on the losing site.
Too much attention is being paid to people who fought for the South during the Civil War. The war was not about slavery….. until the emancipation proclamation, it was about State’s rights and the treatment of Southern Agrarian States by the Industrialized Northern States.
Recently Amarillo amid pressure from various groups changed from the name of Robert E. Lee, because Robert E. Lee fought for the South and slavery. 1.) When Lee joined the army and went to West Point, he freed all of his slaves. This doesn’t sound like Pro-Slavery to me. When Lee married, his wife, a Custis , as was Martha Washington, brought her own personal slave into the marriage. Lee got a bad rap.
When Stephen F. Austin brought early colonists into Texas, each colonist was given an additional 80 acres for each slave the brought with them. We aren’t advocating changing the name of Austin Middle school, nor of Travis Middle school, or Bowie Middle school because they owned slaves and most certainly are not Fannin Middle School, because Fannin was slave trader, and smuggled slaves into the United States illegally after the Government banned slave trade.
Maybe it’s time we stopped fighting the Civil War after 154 years and go on with rebuilding America.