Nathaniel Bedford Forrest statue

[Quavodus]

It came down Yesterday in Nashville. Why? The people that wanted it gone, still won't be happy. They'll never be satisfied and happy. If you're gonna take some down, take them all down. It's history, and history is not always flowers and butterflies. 

[Grunt67]

Sad & disgraceful. All I'm going to say here.

[Garufa]

That was the most god-awful excuse for a “statue” I’ve ever seen.  A caricature. Those dinosaurs at goofy golf courses look more realistic.

Yeah, people wanted it gone.  Especially, the heirs of the guy that built it on his own private land.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Garufa

[Quavodus]

Ok, I guess if it looked weird. 

[Grayfox54]

Yeah, that statue was terrible and a disgrace to Forrest. However, the man deserved statues. Forrest was considered by both sides to be the greatest cavalry commander of the Civil War. 

There used to be a very good statue of him in Memphis. But the history haters had it removed several years ago. 

I've said it many times. The worst mistake you can make in the study of history is to judge the past by the standards of today.

[papa61]

I also read today that a statue if Robert E. Lee was taken down and will be melted down to be used in "art". was it not already art?

one cannot erase history by destroying monuments.

[monkeylizard]

14 minutes ago, papa61 said:

one cannot erase history by destroying monuments.

Sure you can. It's standard procedure for dictators. Make people forget or never be taught what happened, and it's like it never happened. Ask anyone in China under the age of 35 what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and they won't have a clue. The ChiComms didn't even have to remove a monument, just put a gag order on anyone talking about it and the next generation never knew a thing.

Edited December 9, 2021 by monkeylizard

[Grayfox54]

1 hour ago, papa61 said:

one cannot erase history by destroying monuments.

No, but you can by changing textbooks, class instruction and basically never mentioning it to school kids. All part of the dumbing down of America. 

All this woke crap is getting out of hand. If history disturbs you, makes you mad or even frightens you, that's a good thing. Learn from it an don't make the same mistakes again.

[Darrell]

12 hours ago, Grayfox54 said:

Forrest was considered by both sides to be the greatest cavalry commander of the Civil War.

And he was also the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, which is what those opposing the statue were most opposed to. I think we could "cancel" just about every one of our past "heroes". George Washington owned slaves, Jefferson had children with at least one of his slaves (Sally Hemming was also his wife's half-sister) and kept those children in slavery, Lincoln suggested that blacks should be sent to Liberia after the war,  Tennessee's own Andrew Jackson slaughtered Indians, Woodrow Wilson has a reputation as a racist. All those were men of their times. Virtually everyone was a racist in Washington's time. 

Better to acknowledge the faults of America's past leaders and to consider their accomplishments in context with times in which they lived. 

[papa61]

9 hours ago, monkeylizard said:

Sure you can. It's standard procedure for dictators. Make people forget or never be taught what happened, and it's like it never happened. Ask anyone in China under the age of 35 what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and they won't have a clue. The ChiComms didn't even have to remove a monument, just put a gag order on anyone talking about it and the next generation never knew a thing.

 

8 hours ago, Grayfox54 said:

No, but you can by changing textbooks, class instruction and basically never mentioning it to school kids. All part of the dumbing down of America. 

All this woke crap is getting out of hand. If history disturbs you, makes you mad or even frightens you, that's a good thing. Learn from it an don't make the same mistakes again.

but the truth is still there.history is as it was. it may only live in whispers and legends or buried with those who were there but it is still THE history. if we erase the truth from our sight we are subject to repeat the same mistakes. but history cannot be erased

[Alleycat72]

13 hours ago, Garufa said:

That was the most god-awful excuse for a “statue” I’ve ever seen.  A caricature. Those dinosaurs at goofy golf courses look more realistic.

Yeah, people wanted it gone.  Especially, the heirs of the guy that built it on his own private land.

You should have met Bill Dorris. You're post describes him perfectly. 

[deerslayer]

I don’t have a problem with it, although I cringe at the thought of whatever woke crap it will supposedly be used to make.  I doubt many would argue that statues of Rommel or Yamamoto would be appropriate and I don’t see a Forrest statue as being much different.  If I were a black person, I wouldn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling looking at a monument erected to celebrate the guy who started the Klan. 

[OldIronFan]

All these statues being taken down were never about history to begin with. I find the claims that removing them is an attempt to erase or rewrite history laughable. They were not commissioned by historical societies, municipalities, museums, veterans groups, or any department of state/federal government. They were paid for in whole or in part by individuals and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. 

The statues and memorials were put in place by confederate sympathizers, racist, and segregationist as an effort to reshape the history of the civil war and to preserve confederate culture in the south through the first half of the 20th century. They were used specifically as a tool for the intimidation and oppression of blacks. That continued on deep into the 1960s. There were clearly observable spikes in the commission of new memorials and statues leading up to and following turbulent times like Brown v. Board of Ed and the Civil Rights act in 64. It was undeniably an attempt to fight the rising tide of civil rights and desegregation. 

The United Daughters of the Confederacy also fought against any school textbook that claimed slavery was the central issue of the Civil War and helped frame the states rights argument. They  worked to downplay the cruelty of slave owners and the horrors of slavery. Those that currently rail against what they see as attempts to rewrite history should study previous attempts to do exactly  that and pay close attention to who was attempting the rewriting. 

Now this one in particular was the work of an private citizen on his own private land. His heirs and the current owners of the land want it down, as is their right. It was cheap crappy statue to begin with and it certainly did not age well. Good riddance and no great loss.

[Grayfox54]

So many people want to make such a big deal out of the fact that Nathan Bedford Forrest was a founding member and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.  He indeed was. The original purpose of the Klan was to preserve and honor the traditions and lifestyle of the Old South. What everybody seems to ignore is the fact that when Forrest saw what the Klan was turning into, he quit. His last order as Grand Wizard before leaving was for the Klan to be disbanded. Unfortunately, that order was ignored. 

[TGO David]

1 hour ago, OldIronFan said:

The statues and memorials were put in place by confederate sympathizers, racist, and segregationist as an effort to reshape the history of the civil war and to preserve confederate culture in the south through the first half of the 20th century. They were used specifically as a tool for the intimidation and oppression of blacks. That continued on deep into the 1960s. There were clearly observable spikes in the commission of new memorials and statues leading up to and following turbulent times like Brown v. Board of Ed and the Civil Rights act in 64. It was undeniably an attempt to fight the rising tide of civil rights and desegregation. 

I feel like certain statements really should come with some sort of citation of sources.  This one, for example.  If true, these statistics should be available in some way that would corroborate the statement.  Care to lay out your sources?

  

[A.J. Holst]

I drove past the Nathan Bedford Forrest state park exit earlier this week, how long before it's renamed?

 

[monkeylizard]

I've long though that the complexities of the man deserved more than a Hamburglar-esque statue. But pretty much all the statues are of his military deeds. Even his bust in the state museum is from his CSA cavalry days.

He didn't found the KKK. He joined 2 years after it was founded. But he was their 1st Grand Wizard which he later disavowed.

In addition to trying to end the KKK in his final orders as the Grand Wizard, he also fought to allow blacks into law school and wrote a letter to then-governor Brown offering "to exterminate the white marauders who disgrace their race by this cowardly murder of Negroes" when 4 of them were murdered by a lynch mob AFTER being arrested for defending themselves. He advocated for the advancement of the people he once oppressed and argued for racial harmony in his final years.

But how much good does one have to do to overcome the bad they've done? That's really a question for all of us.

It would be interesting to see how a good artist might show the complexities, conflicts, and growth of the man over his life instead of just sticking him on a horse with a saber in his hand.

Edited December 9, 2021 by monkeylizard

[monkeylizard]

2 hours ago, TGO David said:

I feel like certain statements really should come with some sort of citation of sources.  This one, for example.  If true, these statistics should be available in some way that would corroborate the statement.  Care to lay out your sources?

  

It wasn't exclusively the Daughters of the Confederacy but they did fund many of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_erected_by_the_United_Daughters_of_the_Confederacy

Here's some info on where and when most of the statues went up.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future

The data comes from the decidedly left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center. The data of "when" they went up is fact. You may choose to agree or disagree with what the SPLC says is the "why" they went up. They clearly have an agenda of their own so draw your own conclusions.

I don't know if their numbers include monuments erected at the national battlefield parks or not. Those were largely funded by the survivors of the battles and their state legislatures to memorialize their fallen brothers. If it does, that would help explain why so many went up 40-50 years later as those men reached the end of their lives and wanted to leave something behind and that's about when additional battlefields were preserved and needed those markers to help educate future generations. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-civil-war-battlefield-monuments-markers-and-tablets

If the SPLC numbers don't include those, then their explanation is at least plausible though they offer no facts to prove causation rather than correlation.

It's also important to note that location matters . . . a lot. Markers and memorials to soldiers and generals at the national military parks have a relevance to that location and serve as part of a story-telling museum of sorts. The markers and monuments have context and reference a singular moment in history.

Dropping Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues into a park in Baltimore makes little historical sense, much less a Confederate monument in a cemetery in Seattle erected by the DoC.

Edited December 9, 2021 by monkeylizard

[Links2k]

15 hours ago, Grayfox54 said:

No, but you can by changing textbooks, class instruction and basically never mentioning it to school kids. All part of the dumbing down of America. 

All this woke crap is getting out of hand. If history disturbs you, makes you mad or even frightens you, that's a good thing. Learn from it an don't make the same mistakes again.

I agree. Teach all of American history from EVERY perspective, not just the one that makes one group of people feel good. The statues need to remain so that dialogue will continue. 
 

 

[E4 No More]

1 hour ago, Links2k said:

I agree. Teach all of American history from EVERY perspective, not just the one that makes one group of people feel good.

Unfortunately, there Isn't enough time allotted for that. To me, the difference between high school and college were night and day. I didn't realize how much I didn't know going into college.

[OldIronFan]

5 hours ago, TGO David said:

I feel like certain statements really should come with some sort of citation of sources.  This one, for example.  If true, these statistics should be available in some way that would corroborate the statement.  Care to lay out your sources?

  

Not a specific source although the Southern Poverty Law Center database mentioned by Monkeylizard is one that has come up or is referenced in multiple articles on the subject. My statements are based on a collection of reading I have done over time including my interest/participation in the civil war reenactment/living history events. 

If you set aside the misguided actions and craziness of the current extremists groups (on both sides) of the arguments and ask a 50+ year old black American what the memorials and statues mean to them you will hear a different side that is not well represented by mainstream media. 

I would add the caveat that I am not speaking of memorials, plaques or statues that are present on federal park lands or battlefield parks like Shiloh, Gettysburg, or even Stones River National Battlefield. Those places are the exact opposite of what I am speak of and are for the express purpose of preserving and presenting the actual history of the war. I am speaking of statues, busts, and memorials placed in or around southern civil buildings like courthouse and capitols. Most of those were put in place a couple of generations or more after the end of the civil war by groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. 

[Garufa]

As far as the SLPC database goes it is not entirely accurate.  I checked the only monument that I remember well, the Forrest monument in Memphis that was removed in 2017.  SLPC has it as "sponsored" by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  It was in fact erected by some of the leading citizens of the city at the time.

[Chucktshoes]

1 minute ago, Garufa said:

As far as the SLPC database goes it is not entirely accurate.  I checked the only monument that I remember well, the Forrest monument in Memphis that was removed in 2017.  SLPC has it as "sponsored" by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  It was in fact erected by some of the leading citizens of the city at the time.

Yup. Even though one of them was a prominent proponent of the UDC, it wasn’t technically sponsored by them. 

[Garufa]

17 minutes ago, Chucktshoes said:

Yup. Even though one of them was a prominent proponent of the UDC, it wasn’t technically sponsored by them. 

I wonder if The Commercial Appeal has explained their donation to the erection in the past 120 years.  

[Daniel]

On 12/8/2021 at 5:19 PM, Quavodus said:

It came down Yesterday in Nashville. Why? The people that wanted it gone, still won't be happy. They'll never be satisfied and happy. If you're gonna take some down, take them all down. It's history, and history is not always flowers and butterflies. 

Im happy about it.