This one is for the “Ugh” file… Via MSNBC:
The Sons of Confederate Veterans proposed that Mississippi issue a specialty plate honoring General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who many historians say was the first Grand
Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist group that terrorized blacks in the South after the Civil War.
Forrest is the only individual they want to commemorate. All the other plates would be in remembrance of battles that took place in Mississippi or Confederate veterans as a whole.
The proposal must be approved by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Haley Barbour.
Needless to say, the NAACP, rightfully so, is not too happy about this:
(CNN) — The Mississippi NAACP has called on Governor Haley Barbour to publicly denounce an attempt by a Confederacy group to honor a Ku Klux Klan leader, the organization said Monday.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans has launched the campaign to recognize Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest on a specialty license plate.
Forrest, a popular and controversial figure, is best known as a leader of the KKK, the white supremacist group known for terrorizing blacks in the South after the Civil War.
He is also praised and criticized for an 1864 raid at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where hundreds of black Union Army members were killed during the war. The controversy over whether Forrest conducted or condoned the massacre is still a matter for heated debate.
Mississippi NAACP leaders feel a state-sanctioned license plate honoring a man with ties to the KKK sends the wrong message to people in the state and across the country.
“Any individual who was a traitor to our country and our Constitution should be treated as such,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the state NAACP chapter.
Forrest was a “terrorist” whose acts were “immoral and unconstitutional,” Johnson said. Honoring him or anyone who promoted racial hatred or violence would be offensive, he said.
The NAACP isn’t alone in its protest against the SCV. More than 1,700 Mississippians have joined a Facebook group called Mississippians Against The Commemoration Of Grand Wizard Nathan Forrest.
The group’s website says they “are united in sending a message to the state government of Mississippi that WE WILL NOT STAND for the public glorification of one of the original leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.”
The proposal by the Sons of Confederate Veterans seeks to honor Confederate generals.
“If we can’t hold him up to where he’s supposed to be, then nobody else is gonna do it,” group member Greg Stewart said. Forrest is being “unfairly maligned,” he told CNN.
Most historians agree that Forrest left the KKK after less than two years because the small pockets of groups were growing rapidly, were unorganized and violent.
Forrest felt “they had the right idea, but went about it the wrong way,” said Mike Martinez, a part-time political science instructor at Kennesaw State University. Despite his short stint with the Klan, Martinez said Forrest’s affiliation with the organization gave it credibility.
Stewart said Forrest was chosen to be recognized not because of his time with the KKK, but for his spirit and leadership during the Civil War.
His image is one in a series of five that will have to be approved on a year-by-year basis by the state legislature, Stewart said.
Other Confederacy symbols to be used on license plates are Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, the battle for Vicksburg, the battle of Shiloh and Confederate soldiers.
“unfairly maligned” by ass. The man was racist and should be remembered as so. Screw him and rest of those damned racist assholes. Like this guy here. 😡