Tennessee Commission to take up removal of statue of notorious Confederate general

[Tennessee Hillbilly]

From the article:
Gov. Bill Lee announced Wednesday that a state panel that has the authority to help remove the bust of a former Confederate general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan from Tennessee’s state Capitol will take up the issue next week.

The Republican governor said in a press release that the Capitol Commission would meet July 9, but no agenda was posted. However, Lee later told reporters that the group would address the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust.
...
Forrest was a Confederate cavalry general who amassed a fortune as a plantation owner and slave trader in Memphis before the Civil War. His involvement with the Klan came after the war.

Removing the bust requires approval from the Capitol Commission before going to the state’s Historical Commission as laid out by the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. It’s a lengthy process, which means that even if the Capitol signs of the bust’s removal, the process likely will linger for months.
...
The Republican-controlled Legislature in Tennessee refused to advance legislation calling for the bust’s removal before adjourning last month despite impassioned pleas from Black lawmakers.

Link to article:
[link:https://www.wvlt.tv/2020/07/02/lee-capitol-commission-to-take-up-confederate-bust-removal/|

[Docreed2003]

1. While they're at it

Let's get rid of "Nathan Bedford Forrest Day" as well

[Tennessee Hillbilly]

3. Governor Lee did try to eliminate it...

Actually Governor Lee tried to eliminate "Nathan Bedford Forrest Day" (July 13) earlier this year, but the Tennessee legislature refused to go along. But Lee did manage to get legislation that releases him from having to officially proclaim it as a state holiday, and has said he will not do so this year or in future years. So it's still on the books as a state holiday but Lee won't issue a proclamation for its celebration. It's kind of a kafkaesque situation.

A different statue of Forrest was removed from a park in Memphis in 2017, along with a statue of Jefferson Davis.

[Docreed2003]

5. Lmao, Hillbilly I know all about Lee

I'm a native Tennessean as well and live north of Nashvegas. Let me clear one thing up completely: Bill Lee is a poor man's Donald Trump and he did exactly jack shit to undo "NBF day" in the state. He has signed it every year since coming into office. At no point has he come out strongly against "NBF Day". The only thing he has done is to say that "Well my hands are tied, I have to sign it because of the legislature"...yeah BS. He is only taking the stand he is now against the NBF statue because it is politically expedient.

[Tennessee Hillbilly]

8. Yes ...

I know that Forrest was a horrible vile creature, and I know that Bill Lee is a right-wing repug, although not as bad as trump (nobody is as bad as trump).

As for Bill Lee's motives, I not sure that what he's doing really is politically expedient in Tennessee. At any rate, whatever his reasons, he is making an effort to get the statue removed.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. In the wee hours, just sneak in and blow it up.

[dalton99a]

4. Forrest ordered the massacre of African-American Union troops after their surrender at Fort Pillow

The New York Times reported on April 24:

The blacks and their officers were shot down, bayoneted and put to the sword in cold blood.... Out of four hundred negro soldiers only about twenty survive! At least three hundred of them were destroyed after the surrender! This is the statement of the rebel General Chalmers himself to our informant.[32]

Forrest's dispatch stated:

The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.

General Ulysses S. Grant quoted Forrest's dispatch in his Personal Memoirs and commented: "Subsequently, Forrest made a report in which he left out the part which shocks humanity to read."[33][34]

[Docreed2003]

6. FT Pillow...which was located in western TN

And yet our state honors this bastard not only with a bust in the Capitol but a fucking day of remembrance called "Nathan Bedford Forrest Day"

[Nevilledog]

7. There's a Fort Pillow?

I thought that was what we made in the living room as kids.