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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – The Tennessee Department of Transportation has “respectfully denied” the Metro Council’s request to block the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue on Interstate 65. The council approved a resolution to ask TDOT to plant trees blocking its view to the public on July 8. The statue, which is surrounded by Confederate flags, sits on private property near the Harding Place exit. Monday, the department sent the following statement to News 2: TDOT does not plant foliage on its right-of-way with the sole intention of blocking items on private property based on what might be offensive to some and...

Just south of Nashville, Tennessee, along Interstate 65, there sits a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest riding on horseback, surrounded by Confederate battle flags. For those with little more than a passing interest in American history, Forrest may be only known to you as the person after whom Forrest Gump was named in the movie. Others will know that he was a Confederate general and the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. It’s been sitting there on private land since 1998, but given recent events you can imagine that it’s become the target of renewed political interest. The Metro...

A bid by Tennessee’s governor to remove a bust of Confederate cavalry general, slave trader and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state Capitol building was rejected Friday. The State Capitol Commission voted 7-5 against issuing a petition to moving the bust from the Capitol to the new state museum being built nearby. It would have been the first step in a lengthy process laid out by Tennessee’s “Heritage Protection Act” that limits the removal or changing of historical memorials on public property. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam called for the removal after last month’s deadly white...

The Memphis City Council has ordered the removal of the NB Forrest Statue that sits on top of the graves of General and Mrs. NB Forrest. This action breaks several laws and the order of the State for Memphis to not make any action toward the historical monument and grave site.

(CNN) The remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife will be removed from a Memphis park where a monument of him once stood. The decision to move their remains came after the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a non-profit organization of male descendants of Confederate veterans, agreed to drop a pending lawsuit against park owners

In 2020’s version of the Bolshevik Revolution, almost any statue or monument that predates or doesn’t explicitly honor the Civil Rights era is a potential target for being defaced, damaged, or toppled entirely, Taliban-style. The woke social justice warriors who have somehow managed to seize the culture don’t seem to concern themselves much with whether these monuments honor Jefferson Davis, George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Christopher Columbus, or even famous abolitionist Matthias Baldwin. To them, these are just dead old white dudes who belong in the dustbin of history because, well, they were probably evil, engaged...

The quotes below appear towards the end of the linked article about Gen Forrest's complicated life. I found them to be so remarkable that if you don't read anything else about the self-described "most maligned" Southerner, you should read these words. For hidden in them is a remarkable story redemption and change. It brought tears to my eyes.

Mandated by law, Saturday, July 13 is "Nathan Forrest Bedford Day" Tennessee with an annual proclamation issued by the governor each year. On Friday evening, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas slammed Governor Bill Lee for signing the announcement once again.  This is WRONG. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general & a delegate to the 1868 Democratic Convention. He was also a slave trader & the 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK. Tennessee should not have an official day (tomorrow) honoring him. Change the law. https://t.co/XBgoRCBoI0— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 12, 2019 But why did he have to sign the...

Tennesse Gov. Bill Lee was under fire from Republicans and Democrats alike Friday after signing a proclamation designating Saturday, July 13 as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day, a state "day of special observance" honoring a Confederate general and early leader of the Klu Klux Klan. "I signed the bill because the law requires that I do that and I haven’t looked at changing that law," Lee said Thursday according to reports by the Tennessean. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Tx., took to Twitter to demand that the state "change the law." "This is WRONG. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general & a...

The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a social club by a group of Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the winter of 1865-66. The group adopted the name Ku Klux Klan from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle, and the English word clan. In the summer of 1867, the Klan became the "Invisible Empire of the South" at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee attended by delegates from former Confederate states. The group was presided over General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is believed to have been the first Grand Wizard -- the title for the head of the organization.

This is the untold story of the Union's "hard war" against the people of the Confederacy. Styled the "Black Flag" campaign, it was agreed to by Lincoln in a council with his generals in 1864. Cisco reveals the shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering of personal property, and even murder of civilians. Carefully researched largely from primary sources, this examination also gives full attention to the suffering of Black victims of Federal brutality.

Forrest's soldiers loved him. His fellow generals admired him. His enemies were terrified at the mere mention of his name. Gen. Robert E. Lee said of his finest subordinate commanders, the most remarkable was one he "had never met" — Forrest. And U.S. and foreign military officers alike have studied Forrest’s campaigns over the decades since the end of the war. It has even been speculated that some aspects of the German Blitzkrieg were patterned after some of Forrest's operations.