GOP Lawmaker: KKK Grand Wizard Was 'One Of The South’s First Civil Rights Leaders'

[RandySF]

Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, was "one of the South's first civil rights leaders," a GOP state representative from Tennessee wrote in an op-ed published Thursday.

Tennessee State Rep. Andy Holt (R) said lawmakers were trying to "stoke the fires of racial tension in America" with claims against Forrest and by removing his remains from a Memphis park, according to his op-ed in The Jackson Sun, a newspaper in Jackson, Tenn.

Those that wish to stoke the fires of racial tension in America claim that Gen. Forrest was the founder of the “KKK.” This is not true. The Ku Klos of the mid-1860s was founded by Judge Thomas Jones, Frank McCord and several other Confederate veterans. Two years after its founding, Forrest was elected grand wizard of the organization. However, he never dressed in costume.

Holt cited a speech he said Forrest gave in 1875 at a Fourth of July barbecue for an early civil right organization in Memphis.




http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andy-holt-tennessee-nathan-forrest

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. lol. ok

[uriel1972]

2. and they say satire is dead... nt

[Major Nikon]

3. Just how fucking stupid do you have to be in order to be a Republican

Nathan Bedford Forrest was the leader of the KKK during a time in which they were harassing and killing black voters and candidates. His speech in 1875 was an attempt to convince black people that those who had formerly fought a war to keep them in bondage were really their friends.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

4. But, remember, Rush says the KKK are part of "the Democrat Party"

Funny, how, other than Jim Webb, all the folks outraged over Confederate and racist icons falling out of fashion are Republicans.

[steve2470]

5. apparently Forrest had a change of heart years after the Civil War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest#Speaks_to_black_Southerners


but I think it's a huge stretch to call him "one of the south’s first civil rights leaders". Being instrumental in forming the KKK pretty much cancels out his change of heart, in my book. The man KILLED black people, jaysus.

[bluestateguy]

6. It is true he was not the founder

but he was a Grand Wizard.

Separately, the Fort Pillow massacre was bad enough to DQ him from any honors.

[struggle4progress]

7. ... defenders of Forrest make a lot of hay about his speech

to the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association at a black community picnic in Memphis where he advocated, in his own racist way, for understanding between blacks and whites ... He stood there, in front of a black audience, and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God's earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself." Now, read that again, knowing that Forrest was a slave trader and think about how casually slave traders like Franklin talked about raping black women, and how widely accepted by white Southerners it was that slave traders all raped black women ... And here he is, joking in front of a crowd of people, some of whom were raped by men like Forrest, about loving the ladies ... Look at what he says later in the speech: "Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked me to protect them. I have placed myself between them and the bullets of my men, and told them they should be kept unharmed." If you want an idea of how desperate Forrest was to undo the legacy of Fort Pillow, just look at those last two sentences. Nathan Bedford Forrest, to whom legend attributes such loyalty and dedication to his men that, when they were inadequately armed by the Confederacy, he spent his own money on guns for them stands here in front of a crowd, again, a crowd in which the families of the men from Memphis slaughtered at Ford Pillow are standing, and he's saying that he tried to protect black men, who, keep in mind were soldiers, AND HIS MEN DEFIED HIM ...
For the Sake of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Let's Stop Worshipping Him
POSTED BY BETSY PHILLIPS ON TUE, JUN 23, 2015 AT 6:15 AM

[struggle4progress]

8. ... Forrest became a businessman, planter, and slaveholder. He owned several cotton plantations

in the Delta region of West Tennessee. He was also a slave trader, at a time when demand was booming in the Deep South ... On April 12, 1864, General Forrest led his forces in the attack and capture of Fort Pillow ... Achilles Clark, a soldier with the 20th Tennessee cavalry, wrote to his sister immediately after the battle: "The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor, deluded, negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees, and with uplifted hands scream for mercy, but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down ..." ... Forrest was an early member of the Ku Klux Klan ... Author Andrew Ward .. writes, "In the spring of 1867, Forrest and his dragoons launched a campaign of midnight parades; 'ghost' masquerades; and 'whipping' and even 'killing Negro voters and white Republicans, to scare blacks off voting and running for office'" ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest