NASHVILLE – Gov. Bill Lee says he expects Tennessee’s Capitol Commission to meet soon to address the controversy over the state’s prominent display of a bust of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest which has generated repeated protests over the years.
Lee, a Republican who took office earlier this year, told reporters Thursday that since he has now appointed two new members of the commission, he expects them to discuss the bust of Forrest, a pre-Civil War slave trader who later became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
“I’m sure they will consider it,” said Lee, who earlier this year suggested adding historical context to the massive bust now displayed in a wall niche located near the Senate and House chambers. “I’ve said before we need to have more conversation about that, and that conversation will happen when they do meet.”
Critics want the bust removed while others have suggested rotating it out with other Tennessee historical figures or, as Lee has previously said, adding context. The bust was installed in 1978 and drew its first protest in 1979 by a group of black Tennesseans.
Protests have picked up steam in recent years and in 2019, a black demonstrator was arrested after he allegedly threw a cup of fluid – he says it was ice tea – at then-House Speaker Glen Casada, R-Franklin.