Florida school named for Ku Klux Klan leader to be renamed

NBC News.com ^ | 12/17/2013 | Eric M. Johnson

[nikos1121]

A Florida high school that for 54 years has borne the name of a leader of the Ku Klux Klan is to be renamed, officials said.

The Nathan Bedford Forrest High School in Jacksonville, Fla., where more than half the students are black, will change its name from that of the man who allegedly was the Ku Klux Klan's first grand wizard.

A new name will be proposed in January.

"We recognize that we cannot and are not seeking to erase history," said Constance Hall, a board member for the Duval County school, which was founded 54 years ago.

"For too long and too many, this name has represented the opposite of unity, respect, and equality," Hall said in a statement.

Forrest was an innovative cavalry leader and a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He joined the Ku Klux Klan after the war; there remains a dispute over his role.

With its roots in the Civil War era, the Ku Klux Klan has long been associated with hooded, white-robed night riders who menaced blacks with cross burnings, lynchings and other acts of violence.

The honoring of Confederate heroes and emblems has been a divisive issue in the United States, with proponents saying it pays homage to regional history and opponents saying it amounts to racism.

Memphis, Tenn., in February this year dropped Confederate names from three city parks. One was named after Forrest.

Omotayo Richmond, who moved to Jacksonville from New York, wrote in a Change.org petition that garnered more than 160,000 signatures in support of changing the school's name that doing so would go toward healing "so much racial division" in Florida.

"African American Jacksonville students shouldn't have to attend a high school named for someone who slaughtered and terrorized their ancestors one more school year," Richmond wrote.

The 1,300-student public school, which became racially integrated in 1971, had voted some five years ago to keep the name, but those officials had been replaced, the petition said.

[Ingtar]

Was the Klan leader also a Democratic Party leader in the US Senate? That seems to make it OK.

[nikos1121]

Obviously, they know nothing about this great man who, as I recalled, dropped out of the Ku Klux Klan because they were too radical.

[Dilbert San Diego]

So now, are they going to move on and re-name all of the places in West Virginia named after a well known Klan leader, Robert Byrd????

Or does Byrd get a pass because he was a good Democrat???

[Dalberg-Acton]

What about the schools named after serial killer, drone king Obama?

[henkster]

My first thought as well...

[ETL]

Was the Klan leader also a Democratic Party leader in the US Senate? That seems to make it OK

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

In 1942, 24-year-old Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), whose parades in Matoaka, West Virginia, he had witnessed in his childhood. He was unanimously elected Exalted Cyclops, or leader, of his local chapter.[8]

Byrd, in his autobiography, attributed the beginnings of his political career to this incident, although he lamented that they involved the Klan. According to Byrd, a KKK official told him "You have a talent for leadership, Bob... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd recalls that "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did."[4] He participated in the KKK during World War II, holding the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops [the top officer in the local Klan unit]. He did not serve in the military during the war, working instead as a welder in a Baltimore, Maryland shipyard, where he helped build warships.[citation needed]

Byrd commented on the 1945 controversy about racially integrating the military. Byrd, when he was 28 years old, wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo, of Mississippi, vowing never to serve in such a military:

"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.[5]"

He had earlier written "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side".[6][7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Participation_in_the_Ku_Klux_Klan
__________________________________________________________

From the Washington Post:

"Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter -- which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith -- that he would never fight in the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd added that, "Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.."..."

"during the general election campaign, Byrd's GOP opponent uncovered a letter Byrd had handwritten to Green, the KKK Imperial Wizard, recommending a friend as a Kleagle and urging promotion of the Klan throughout the country. The letter was dated 1946 -- long after the time Byrd claimed he had lost interest in the Klan. "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia," Byrd wrote, according to newspaper accounts of that period. Byrd makes no mention of the letter in his new book."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801105_pf.html

[Dilbert San Diego]

It’s a trend of the times, to re-name places to be politically correct.

A few years ago, New Orleans renamed George Washington school. Since Washington owned slaves, he was deemed unworthy of the honor of a school named for him.. That school was renamed after an African king. Which presumeably helped the self esteem and academic achievement of the largely black student body at the former George Washington school.

[mrsmel]

Mine also, but I know the question is rhetorical. ‘rat KKK leaders get a pass, just as their favored criminals do.

[rktman]

LOL! Bet that old self esteem quotient went sky high. I guess the FL school will be the “travon martin memorial institute for higher learning”. Or just the “skittles school of cultural diversity”.

[Prospero]

The Urbanos have been trying to "rename" NBF school for decades. This is nothing new.

Forrest was the first to disband the Klan, long before its resurgence with the Progressives and Wilson, which is the "Klan" most folks think of if they ever give a moment's thought to "the Klan," at all.

Think of it. By the time "the Klan" had its day in the sun, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the early 20th century, the time for segregationists to hide under sheets was long past. By that time, fifty years after Reconstruction, racists had no need to hide. All they needed to do was join the Democrat Party.

Forrest marched with Sherman, for crying out loud, during the reunion parades.

This isn't smart enough to call it revisionism. It's just stupidity.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I think Forrest was dead at least a decade before the Klan reformed into it’s current incarnation.

[ken5050]

Shame on you....you forgot to include the link to one of Sheet's best known quotes..the "white nigger" interview with Tony Snow..we gotta give the devil his due.

[ken5050]

Well, there goes the “skeer”

[Stormdog]

“That school was renamed after an African king.”

His Heinous Barack Obama?

[Bobalu]

Democrats all... not a republican in the crowd.

The saying at the time was "If we let blacks vote, they will just vote for republicans"

[Salvavida]

Cool! We can win this.

Now start a target school with the same name, with a solid classic American curriculum, that graduates students that are functional, great debaters by their understanding and application of Aristotelian logic, and they will scoop up the college scholarships.

[nascarnation]

It will be a difficult choice between Baraq Obama Elementary and Nelson Mandela Academy...

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

It was 38 years between Forrest’s death and the Klan rebirth. PC history only has him distancing himself from it. No, he did indeed disband it.

[ETL]

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, Ex-Klansman
by Michelle Malkin (March 8, 2001)

Ex-Klansman Robert Byrd, the senior senator from West Virginia, casually used the phrase "white nigger" twice on national TV this weekend. Enraged civil rights groups organized a protest campaign against Sen. Byrd and demanded that he undergo sensitivity training ... not.

The ex-Klansman, you see, is a Democrat. Democrats can join hate groups and utter the ugliest racial slurs and get away with it because they are Democrats. They belong to the party of racial tolerance and understanding. They're paragons of virtue, and the rest of us are bigoted rubes.

The ex-Klansman showed his true colors when asked by Fox News Sunday morning talk show host Tony Snow about the state of race relations in America. Sen. Byrd warned: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=383