Posted on 07/09/2015 1:30:24 PM PDT by bryan999
Late Tuesday, the Memphis, Tennessee, City Council voted unanimously to dig up the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, Talking Points Memo reported Wednesday. The council also voted to remove a statue placed in Forrest's honor. The move came after Mayor A.C. Wharton called for the bodies to be dug up and relocated.
Tuesday's vote is not the end of the story, however. According to WREG, the Chancery Court would also have to approve the removal of the remains and Forrest's family would also be involved in the decision.
Forrest and his wife are currently buried beneath a statute honoring the general in a park which had been named after him until two years ago. The park is now known as Memphis' Health Sciences Park.
Officials with Elmwood Cemetery -- the location of Forrest's original resting place -- said they would be willing to help move the remains but said they did not want to become the new home of the statue. It is not known where the statue would go if the Tennessee Historic Commission approves its removal. The commission is not set to meet before October.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
It's a lot easier to vote for communist democrats in exchange for "benefits".
If they do this someone may very well drag Martin Luther Kings body out of his God Awful tomb and throw it onto the downtown connector in Atlanta during midday traffic.
This surge in the United States is the exact equal of the ISIS destruction of artifacts.
I think the issue is having a Grand Wizard buried in a city park. I’m just guessing, but I doubt Mr. Byrd is in a similar location.
> Is that a French manicure on the mayor? Yowser.
Well I checked and he is actually married. Surprising since he’s a leftist and wears a French manicure.
ISIS has similar issues with competing religions.
Oh, and BTW - I notice that you're studiously ignoring the actual history of Nathan Bedford Forrest in favor of the TeeVee Spew shorthand of the Leftist/ISIS version.
Why is that?
After this "victory", are you and your fellow revisionist rodentia going to burn the unrepentant Christian churches & Jewish synagogues in Memphis? LOL! :)
I figured out a NEW nomer for the Left: LeftISIS...
"LeftISIS" - behead your enemies. Dig up the corpses of your enemies. Destroy their monuments.
Several years later, we have the "racist" Forrest "fraternizing with the enemy".
Whereupon N. B. Forrest again thanked [the young black woman] Miss Lewis for the bouquet and then gave her a kiss on the cheek. Such a kiss was unheard of in the society of those days, in 1875, but it showed a token of respect and friendship between the general and the black community and did much to promote harmony among the citizens of Memphis.
Obviously, the only solution is that of ISIS, or the enemies of Oliver Cromwell.
Or LeftISIS...
LeftISIS.
Excellent word! May I use it?
Certainly! :)
Thank you for your enlightening comments about General Forrest. I am grateful that he later in life distanced himself from the Klan and no doubt his burial in the park reflects his fellow citizens’ appreciation of him during his lifetime.
However, history is not only about the past but includes how the present interprets it as well. I can understand the Memphis council’s desire not to have a former Confederate General and former KKK member (even if later repentant) resting in a public park given the current social climate. White supremacists and other racists also twist history to their own ends the same as radical leftists. If the council were truly the same as ISIS, they would be burning General Forrest and his wife’s corpses and tossing them to the wind; as well as removing all record of his life from the city’s archives. Instead they are merely requesting that the bodies of General Forrest and his wife to be removed off a public site so that their present location cannot be used to stir up unrest in the city. It is legitimate - even from a conservative viewpoint - for a city council to want to maintain peace as far as it is possible.
sadly, for too many
Welcome to the Soviet Union. With Hilterly’s re-education camps she talked about to a large group of leftist, we are in for a ride.
Yours posts are always polite and well thought out. I do, however, disagree. Moving the remains of prominent historical persons for political reasons is historical revisionism. Only tyrannical regimes need to do such things. How does pandering for one political faction at the expense of another help the situation?
So, how about just educating those who are irritated? History is not really supposed to be subject to interpretation. It is supposed to be a factual account of the past. If we revise it to satisfy every complaining party, how will we really know what happened and how we got to our current state?
Besides, there are plenty of people who admire Confederate officers, certainly among their descendants. It is just not right to punish those families just because someone feels bad about the history in which they did not live.
This action is just like ISIS, just more peaceful .... for the moment.
I am not meaning to pick a fight with you. However, IMO your understanding of history is incomplete. In the first place, there are billions of facts from the past. If you have those only, all you have is a timeline filled with disjointed items. These facts don’t speak for themselves. In order for there to be meaning to them, these are shifted, arranged and interpreted in the form of “history.” History is a human endeavor and composition. Since no one person can know all the facts or arrange or interpret them fully, there always will be new historical study. New information can also come to light in the present which those eariler had no access that changes our understanding of past events.
Secondly, the past does not exist isolated from the present. In the 21st century we not only know the Civil War era, but we also understand how those events lead into the period of Reconstruction; the southern reaction to that which in some cases expressed itself in Jim Crow laws and the KKK and in segregation. Then there was the reaction to those events. To interpret the Civil War as if none of these events followed from them will of necessity give a truncated or false picture. There are also things from the past, which a community may deem proper and wise in their time to honor, which are viewed differently to later generations.
Therefore, while I do sympathize with the feelings of the families of the Confederacy. The families of those who experienced slavery, as well as segregation and persecution by the KKK, are equally as valid in the context of what is to honored on public land. Again, that is why, in our present social problems, we cannot look at the burial of a Confederate General in a city park in the same way as his contemporaries viewed him.
Finally, ISIS’s destruction of ancient monuments is an determined effort to destroy the past so that it cannot ever be remembered or studied. The removal of General Forrest and his wife to a private burial site is in no way similar. Again, there is not attempt to desecrate the bodies or erase his service.
Magnificent warriors, on the wrong side of history or not, deserve a special place in history favored with public monuments. Even though I am a loyal US citizen who has indeed taken the Oath to preserve and protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, I can and do hold a special place in my heart for all true warriors. I hold this respect for all of them, irrespective of lesser blemishes.
The warriors of ancient Greece, Rome, Troy, are just the beginning. It would be a shame to erase the likes of Julius Caesar just because he and his troops reaped slaves. Likewise the warriors of any period in time. I have a fondness for Erwin Rommel and Michael Whittman, both German soldiers of WWII. The list is long and spans a lot of time. The men who served in the American Civil War all deserve a place of honor, regardless of which side they served.
Just their place in history is worthy of celebration and honor. General Forrest should be honored by all for precisely the same reasons.
I actually agree with you more than you would think. Such honors should be made on our Civil War battle fields to all those who fought bravely and with distinction. However, in General Forrest’s case, though, I think what happened after the war is causing the problem relating to whether the city of Memphis should still honor him in such a predominant manner. Hopefully, as his future burial site is worked out there will be a way to honor his memory without continuing to cause the community pain one way or the other.
I appreciate your willingness to have this discussion!
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