Protesters Call For Removal Of Nathan Bedford Forrest Bust In Tennessee Capitol

NASHVILLE, TN — Around 75 protesters assembled in the rotunda of the Tennessee State Capitol Monday to call for the removal of monuments to figures from the Confederacy, particularly the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest outside the chamber of the State Senate.

The protest came after a weekend of violence in Charlottesville, Va. surrounding the "Unite the Right" rally, which included white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Klan members opposing that city's planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

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Forrest was a slave trader, an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a Confederate general whose troops are blamed for the mass slaughter of surrendering black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow. His bust has been displayed in the Capitol rotunda since the late 1970s. There have been numerous efforts to have it removed and Forrest's bust was relocated from outside the chamber of the House to make way for one of Sampson Keeble, the first African-American elected to the Tennessee House in 1872.

One of the protesters Monday threw a black shroud on Forrest's bust, undeterred — and uninterfered with — by nearby state troopers. The activists then sat outside Gov. Bill Haslam's office, demanding a statement on the bust from the Republican.

Haslam, as he has in the past, repeated his belief the bust should be removed.

“My position on this issue has not changed – I do not believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol. The General Assembly has established a process for addressing these matters and I strongly encourage the Capitol Commission and the Historical Commission to act," he said in a statement.

In 2016, the legislature passed the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, which requires approval of two-thirds of the state historical commission and approval of the Capitol Commission to remove or rename a memorial or monument. That law, signed into law by Haslam, came in response to efforts to remove monuments to Forrest in Memphis. Most recently, the THPA has been in the news for its role in frustrating efforts to remove the bodies of President James K. Polk and his wife Sarah from the capitol grounds.

Image via Library of Congress