A bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest is displayed in the Tennessee State Capitol Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)NASHVILLE – Although the state Historical Commission last week approved removing the Tennessee Capitol’s bust of Confederate cavalry general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, don’t count on the long-controversial bronze image departing any time soon.
It’s a process expected to take at least four months. And that’s if anything happens at all given the preliminary legal skirmishing among the state’s top Republican elected officials – Gov. Bill Lee, who backs the bust’s removal, and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the Senate speaker, and House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who have opposed removal.
At Lee’s urging, Historical Commission members, many of them Lee appointees, voted 25-1 Tuesday to relocate the Forrest bust, placed back in 1978 outside the House and Senate chambers, to the Tennessee State Museum.
The move is intended to provide historical context about Forrest, whose military tactics are still studied but whose pre-Civil War career as a slave trader and post-war involvement with the Ku Klux Klan before attempting to disband the group have drawn criticism for well over a century.
“Forrest represents pain, suffering and brutal crimes committed against African Americans, and that pain is very real for our fellow Tennesseans as they walk the halls of our statehouse,” Lee told Historical Commission members before their vote in a recorded video message.