Monument to Ku Klux Klan leader triggers controversy

Monument to Ku Klux Klan leader triggers controversy

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The renovation of a monument honoring a Civil War Confederate general, who was the first "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan, is once more creating controversy in Selma, Ala., 11 years after protesters got it moved off of public property.

Men under his command killed “in cold blood” 250 black soldiers fighting for the Union who were captured at Fort Pillow in Tennessee, Pitcavage said. “No one has ever proven conclusively that Forrest himself ordered it, but at the V

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These people are so sick! Why would you honor a guy that murdered women, children, and people for just being black? The guy who created the KKK. This is the equivalent to building a Hitler shrine.

This is at a PUBLIC state owned park, NOT private property. The USA is so backwards. Thank god I live in the north.

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Oh boy. I wondered when this was going to surface on ATS. I read about this a couple of days ago.

First off, it has never been proven this guy was a KKK grand master. A member Granted, but grand master is inconclusive.

There are many statues of General Nathan Forrest in the south - why? He is a Huge confederate hero.

General Nathan Forrest was brilliant in leading charges and formulating strategies against the Union.

Every president from Washington to Obama is guilty of spilling innocent blood in wars yet there are tons of statues of these guys all over the place. This fellow was not any more guilty of having some immoral ideas than anyone else is.

They are Not making a big statue of General Nathan Forrest to promote Hate as these people would have you believe. They are making the statue because he was a great man of history despite any shortcomings he may have had because he did a LOT of good for the confederate country of the South.

en.wikipedia.org...

In fact, many say General Nathan Forrest was the first true Civil Rights Leader.

Many people ignorant of history say that Bedford was the founder of the KKK. The Klan had already been in existence for a year and a half when he was asked to assume the leadership because the people looked up to him as their hero and proven leader.

The KKK of the late 1860's bears no resemblance to the thugs and racists of the new Klan formed at the turn of the century. The Klan Forrest rode with was to fight against the Yankee scalawags and carpetbaggers who were raping the south after the war. US. Army occupation forces committed innumerable atrocities, which today would certainly be classified as international war crimes, much of it against the free blacks. General Forrest joined a citizen militia then called the Klan to protect the citizens of the South, black and white alike, from these vicious atrocities.

Under the 'true' history of the time, one of the first outings that Forrest went on with the Klan was to a black man's house who was accused of beating his wife. The black man, holding an axe, told Forrest that he 'owned' his wife and could beat her anytime he wanted to." Wherein Bedford took the axe from the man, taught him some southern manners on how to treat a lady (black or white), then told him that he had better never see a mark on the woman again.

Forrest disbanded the Klan in 1869 because its mission had been achieved. Union appointed Governor Brownlow and the viscous carpetbaggers had been defeated. Primarily because Forrest told the President of the United States that if they didn't stop stealing land and goods from Southern US citizens, abusing them, and molesting free blacks, he had the capability to start the Civil War over again. The US government was well aware that he could do exactly what he threatened to do with half a million white and several hundred thousand black soldiers standing firmly behind him.

southernheritage411.com...

Where did the above information come from?

When writing my novel on General Forrest, "Fame's Eternal Camping Ground," I spent almost two years researching information. My sources were documents from the Civil War era, military dispatches, old diaries, old newspaper articles and official government publications, just about as factual as you can get.

It's based on facts not on a southern slant as some may believe.

Who is shocked about these people Psychosis is imbedded in DNA and is passed down through generation to generation.That is why racism will never end...

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Idk why I have a hard time believing this but thanks for sharing

reply to post by JohnPhoenix

General Nathan Forrest was brilliant in leading charges and formulating strategies against the Union.

Yeah, so was Hitler. Southern Apologists make me sick.

They are Not making a big statue of General Nathan Forrest to promote Hate as these people would have you believe. They are making the statue because he was a great man of history despite any shortcomings he may have had because he did a LOT of good for the confederate country of the South.

LOL?: Hitler did a lot of good things for Germany too! Lets build a shrine.

In fact, many say General Nathan Forrest was the first true Civil Rights Leader.

............

Talk about revisionist history, written by white supremacists and people that get off on pretending the civil war era is still happening.

Originally posted by rbmgang
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

Idk why I have a hard time believing this but thanks for sharing

I was going to make a thread about it myself but decided not to because I didn't want to fuel the fire. According to the info I uncovered, ( I added to me above post) I can't find anything that would paint General Nathan Forrest as a racist monster. I thought the hate type info on the video should be balanced with facts. That's only fair to a man who was a real hero to many and a great patriot.

Originally posted by RealSpoke

Talk about revisionist history, written by white supremacists and people that get off on pretending the civil war era is still happening.

As far as Hitler goes, he's the only man I know who was able to stand up to the Zionists bankers who bankrupted Germany and led his nation in a few short years to prosperity again under his new system ( this was before the war corrupted him) He was a great man and patriot at that time and for those things he should be well remembered.

Care to prove white supremacists wrote a revisionist history? I don't think you can unless you yourself spends two years going through every historical document you can find like this author did. Why do you persist on furthering the hate with no evidence?

reply to post by JohnPhoenix

That's only fair to a man who was a real hero to many and a great patriot.

???? He's as much of a patriot as Hitler is to Germany. Stop romanticizing genocidal people.....

He was a war criminal. He was responsible for the slaughter of a ton of black soldiers that surrendered.

The Battle of Fort Pillow, also known as the Fort Pillow Massacre, was fought on April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River in Henning, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. The battle ended with a massacre of surrendered Federal black troops by soldiers under the command of Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Military historian David J. Eicher concluded, "Fort Pillow marked one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history."[1]

. However, a Confederate sergeant, in a letter written home shortly after the battle said that "the poor, deluded negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees, and with uplifted hand scream for mercy, but were ordered to their feet and then shot down."[14] This account is consistent with the relatively high comparative casualties sustained by race of the defenders. (See next section.)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Conflicting reports of what happened next, from 16:00 to dusk, led to controversy. Union and Confederate sources claimed that even though the Union troops surrendered, Forrest's men massacred them in cold blood. Surviving members of the garrison said that most of their men surrendered and threw down their arms, only to be shot or bayoneted by the attackers, who repeatedly shouted, "No quarter! No quarter!"[7] The Joint Committee On the Conduct of the War immediately investigated the incident and concluded that the Confederates shot most of the garrison after it had surrendered. A 2002 study by Albert Castel concluded that the Union forces were indiscriminately massacred after Fort Pillow "had ceased resisting or was incapable of resistance."[8] Historian Andrew Ward in 2005 reached the conclusion that an atrocity in the modern sense occurred at Fort Pillow, including the murders of fleeing black civilia
ns, but that the event was not premeditated nor officially sanctioned by Confederate commanders

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by JohnPhoenix

As far as Hitler goes, he's the only man I know who was able to stand up to the Zionists bankers who bankrupted Germany and led his nation in a few short years to prosperity again under his new system ( this was before the war corrupted him) He was a great man and patriot at that time and for those things he should be well remembered.

Well that explains it, you're a Hitler apologist too. Not going to bother wasting my time talking to you.

Freedom of speech/expression is protected under the first amendment. If you don't like the monument then don't visit. We celebrate Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, ect who did the *same thing to people in the south* but most people don't know and refuse to accept that fact of history.

As long as taxpayer money isn't used for the monument, I have no problems with it.


*not really the same thing. They among others were responsible for murders of women, children, and slave dwellings, as well as burning down cities, and stealing or destroying anything of value they came across. *

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

As far as Hitler goes, he's the only man I know who was able to stand up to the Zionists bankers who bankrupted Germany and led his nation in a few short years to prosperity again under his new system ( this was before the war corrupted him) He was a great man and patriot at that time and for those things he should be well remembered.

Well that explains it, you're a Hitler apologist too. Not going to bother wasting my time talking to you.

So, I'm a Hitler Apologist simply because I can fairly recognize the good the man did do before the war? Hold grudges long do ya? I suppose you would go back in time and string him up as a child, or kill his pregnant mother - way before he did any wrong?

As far as General Nathan Forrest, you are getting that info from Wikipedia. it's the common story told. It has not been corroborated by facts from historical documents like this author dug up. Wikipedia I believe put a slant on the story as they so often do. Wikipedia is known for that - you know this. I think you see hate because you want to see hate.

Consider this version of the story that's deemed to be based on facts.
You may still not believe it but you have no proof to the contrary, so stop all the hate.

The only black mark on his war record was alleged to be the Fort Pillow incident, where he was accused of killing unarmed black soldiers. History completely vindicates him of this unfair charge. Although some incidents did occur at Fort Pillow, they happened before Forrest arrived and he was absolutely furious. The action that triggered those incidents was the cowardly running away of numerous white Union soldiers who left the black Union soldiers to defend the fort. The tenacity and pride of the black soldiers (with their white officers) would not allow them to surrender which made the men of Colonel Chalmer's unit mad, resulting in some depredations.

Immediately after the war, Bedford Forrest returned home with the 'free' black men who fought with him. Sixty-five black troopers were with the General when he surrendered his command in May 1865. Forrest said of these black soldiers, "No finer Confederates ever fought."

So you see, if anyone was killed, it wasn't a black/white thing, it was a Confederate/Union thing - it made no difference what color the peoples skin were - cept for someone to come along almost 200 years later and make some hate issue of it.
southernheritage411.com...

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Yet you use Wikipedia as a source in your first comment here.

The other source is a home-spun website that just so happens to support your view - which you are completely taking at face value. That's up to you, but don't then slate people who reference genocidal acts as being suckers for the 'official story'.

Originally posted by ComeFindMe
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

Yet you use Wikipedia as a source in your first comment here.

The other source is a home-spun website that just so happens to support your view - which you are completely taking at face value. That's up to you, but don't then slate people who reference genocidal acts as being suckers for the 'official story'.

I used Wikipedia because it has more details about the mans life I felt was relevant to this thread. I don't trust the accuracy of everything Wikipedia says admittedly. You'll notice at first the Wikipedia article says Nathan Forrest was a KKK grand marshal, then further down the same article sites an expert that says there is no proof that he was ever a grand marshal.

The two accounts we speak of are different and we don't know how accurate any of these facts are but I personally trust the author to be more factual or truthful than Wikipedia because he has to put his reputation on the line. Wikipedia editors do not. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia page with little or no oversight. All I asked above is that RealSpoke consider both sides equally and to stop furthering the hate.

Originally posted by RealSpoke


These people are so sick! Why would you honor a guy that murdered women, children, and people for just being black? The guy who created the KKK. This is the equivalent to building a Hitler shrine.

This is at a PUBLIC state owned park, NOT private property. The USA is so backwards. Thank god I live in the north.

usnews.nbcnews.co m
(visit the link for the full news article)

you mean like putting up monuments for mohammed? (the mosque wanted at ground zero for example) A known killer, and child rapist? Oh no, we must honor every single other "hero", as long as that hero is not some white American, who have their own ideas about things.

Not that I agree with what the original KKK did with some of their actions, but those people DID beleive that desegregation and so forth would be the death of whites. It almost has been, look at the schools which are predominantly black. White students having to be "dumbed down" for the sake of blacks. Look at the advantages that blacks have over whites now: Multiple govt programs for "minorities" and if you are white, you are not a minority , and able to access those programs, hell, even our language had to change as every little f^%^% thing is considered "racist."

Leave it to PTB to swing that pendulum so far the other way. But it doesnt matter, they are only white and shouldn't be considered when it comes to equality. The KKK has just as much a right to their beliefs as anyone else does.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Bear in mind, again, that anyone can set up a website that supports anything. A website's existence doesnt in itself give credence to a theory.

Wikipedia has much more to lose than a one-man website if incorrect information is published. Wikipedia is also a collaborative effort, so the likelihood of a biased article is reduced - certainly in comparison to an overtly politicised home-spun effort.

Also, Wikipedia makes contributors put their money where their mouth is by requiring references that can be followed up, not just someone claiming they did research with no real tangeable proof.

Anyhow, this is going off-topic - as an outsider looking in, continued praise of such a controversial figure doesn't seem the smartest of moves. Reason and the laws of likelihood mean that our boy probably wasn't a very nice person in his attitude or actions.

Originally posted by Nana2
those people DID beleive that desegregation and so forth would be the death of whites. It almost has been, look at the schools which are predominantly black.

Originally posted by Nana2
White students having to be "dumbed down" for the sake of blacks.

Originally posted by Nana2
The KKK has just as much a right to their beliefs as anyone else does.

If anyone around here has bought the propaganda, it's you buddy. These kinds of comments would be quite offensive, if they weren't so ignorant.

General Nathan Forrest is the first "Grand Wizard" of the KKK.

That is a fact. Not open for debate. He led the KKK from 1866 to 1874. Even the official KKK site recognizes Forrest as the first Grand wizard. Damn.

Born July 13, 1821 in Tennessee, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a self-taught man who made his fortune as a cotton planter in Mississippi. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he raised a calvary and fought with distinction at Shiloh. As a major general, he massacred 300 black men, women and children at Ft. Pillow in 1864. After the war, he became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

He was a major slave trader prior to the war. He committed war crimes at Ft. Pillow, instead of accepting the surrender of black union soldiers he slaughtered them, then did the same to the women and children present.

His "Forrest & Maples" slave trading advertisement:



Source: The Domestic Slave Trade

The Southern Poverty Law Center talks about how Robert E. Lee has diminished in the eyes of the new racism movement in the south - the neo-Confederate movement, which views Lee as too moderate, and instead elevating Nathan Forrest to as the "greatest hero of the South". The enshrinement and push to place several statues to Forrest are rooted in the neo-Confederate movement and openly celebrates this mans racism.

Source: A Different Kind of Hero

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


All you have proven was that he like many other people in both the North and South were slave owners - which was acceptable in society at that time. The KKK was first and foremost at it's beginnings a political group against the Reconstruction of the south that threatened to take away their slaves. They were against whites and blacks alike. I can see how they had the right to be ticked off. Everything they had worked for all those years were suddenly stripped away from them. This was their whole life, and what was acceptable to them as they grew up. It was less about slavery than it was about remaking the south into an entity the government could more easily control. If you really study slavery, it was accepted in society at the time to such a great extent, many slave owners went out of their way to be kind and decent to their slaves. Not all but many. They used these slaves to help build empires and suddenly, the Gov took away their workers Why? because the Gov was threatened by the power and money these plantation owners had - after all, they were the driving force behind the Confederate government and the Union had beaten them, denying them their right to be their own country.

At the point they stopped acting for political reasons and simply acted toward blacks with hate was the point the KKK as an entity became evil. Up until that happened, the time when Forrest served, they were no different than any other militia doing what they thought was right to uphold their beliefs for their country.

I'll bet you didn't know there were slave owners in the North, and even some black slave owners....

I'm not saying their actions were right mind you, just saying I can see their side of the argument. You and I would feel the same today if the government suddenly took steps to wipe out everything you worked for over many years though the circumstances would be different undoubtedly.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


The malice and hatred Nathan Forrest displayed towards blacks is evident.

His pre-Civil War record is nothing special - other than making a small fortune off the slave trade.

His Civil War record is shows guile and cunning for military maneuvers, but that is offset by his war crimes, the slaughter of women and children at Ft. Pillow.

His post Civil War record is reprehensible - the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, who, in spite of your claims, was not some simple political organization. It was a terror organization designed to intimidate and murder blacks in the reconstruction era.

The racial hierarchy of the social structure in the Antebellum South was destroyed during the Civil War, and the KKK was the response by southern whites to reassert that racial social order. The KKK's "jolly six" choice for their first Grand Wizard was perfect for that role - a military tactician and warrior, a former slave owner, and a brutal racist.

So let the re-writing of history begin. This statue wouldn't be the first attempt at "white-washing" history in the Confederate South.