I never have and never will understand or accept knee-jerk hatred ~ for me, the pre-civil rights years are a deep scar of shame on our national psyche ~ but apparently "evolution" is skipping some generations ~ ~ Sooz

KKK rallying ‘thousands’ after Memphis parks drop Confederate names
By David Edwards
Friday, February 8, 2013 9:16 EST

A Ku Klux Klan leader named Edward, who goes by the title “KKK Exalted Cyclops,” is promising the “largest” rally in Memphis history after the city decided to remove Confederate names from three parks.

In an 9-0 vote on Tuesday night, the Memphis City Council approved temporary names for three Confederate-themed parks. Forest Park will become “Health Sciences Park,” Confederate Park will be called “Memphis Park” and Jefferson Davis Park will get the name “Mississippi River Park.”

On Thursday, the KKK Exalted Cyclops told WMC-TV that his group had started planning its response before the City Council even voted.

“You’re going to see the largest rally Memphis, Tennessee has ever seen,” he promised. “It’s not going to be 20 or 30, it’s going to be thousands of Klansmen from the whole United States coming to Memphis, Tennessee.”

The KKK’s rally is expected to be held in the newly-renamed “Health Sciences Park.” Confederate Army lieutenant general Nathan Bedford Forrest, for whom the park was originally named, was elected to the post of KKK grand wizard after returning from the war.

The Memphis City Council acted quickly to change the park names because two state lawmakers have proposed the “Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013,” which would prevent local governments from changing the name of any “statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, plaque, historic flag display, school, street, bridge,building, park preserve, or reserve which has been erected for, or named or dedicated in honor of, any historical military figure, historical military event, military organization, or military unit.”

Watch this video from WMC-TV, broadcast Feb. 7, 2013. [Sooz comment: video accessible via the end link]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/08/kkk-rallying-thousands-after-memphis-parks-drop-confederate-names/

The Memphis City Council acted quickly to change the park names because two state lawmakers have proposed the “Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013,” which would prevent local governments from changing the name of any “statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, plaque, historic flag display, school, street, bridge,building, park preserve, or reserve which has been erected for, or named or dedicated in honor of, any historical military figure, historical military event, military organization, or military unit.”

No problemo.
Traitors aren't a protected species.

Hmm...i wonder who Forest Park in St. Louis was named after? While i realize that secession is now, viewed by today's standards, regarded as treason, i don't think men such as Jefferson Davis or Robert Lee regarded themselves as traitors, but rather Statesmen...

Yes, they were wrong but the idea of secession had to be fought over and decided...but I'm not sure I would call these men traitors nor do I think every monument to the Confederate side of the War should be obliterated...many Americans bled and died on both sides of that War and I think their memory should not be erased....

Actions such as this taken by the Memphis City Council gives fodder to such as the KKK...

treason
noun
1. the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.

2. a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.

3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

Cannalee, I agree that states rights was an important issue and still is. The right of states to secede has been argued here in Texas a lot. There were things done that were unfair to the southern states. I do understand a lot of what the south was thinking. The problem is the main issue, the thing that finally made them secede, was slavery. They went to war because they thought states had the right to decide on whether people can own other people. That is not honorable. People willing to send their own to fight and die for that is not honorable. People willing to betray the country they swore allegiance to for that are not honorable. They were traitors to the USA and it was treason. To honor them is to honor what they fought for....slavery. People like Robert E Lee had a lot of respect. But then he led the fight for the states who wanted slavery. I can not say he was a good man. No good person can support slavery.

No good person can support the KKK. It will be interesting to see if this rally even happens and if so how many KKKers will show up. Last time they rallied in this area they promised hundreds and got 5. They got 500 opposing them.

They'll probably have a couple of hundred show up.

I can see honoring Robt E Lee and Jefferson Davis. But not Forrest. His is the most dishonorable legacy from the civil war and afterward.

It's disturbing enough that they could rally a couple hundred.

What's the story about Forrest - I'm not familiar with the name.

I fail to understand any sense of "heroism" in killing over 1/2 million of your own citizens.

Hard to argue with that except to say that the people of the South today are the descendants of those Southern soldiers - just as dear to people today as those boys were to their loved ones of their day.

Both sides lost and both sides won. Can we move on?

They certainly can't. They're still fighting the stupid thing.

It's "inculcation".

No problemo.
Traitors aren't a protected species.

Bear in mind that the capitol of their entire country is named after a traitor who blithely ordered the murder and confiscation of the property of true patriots.

I'd not forgotten.

He was the founder of the KKK, and he demonstrated how racial terrorism was to be carried out.

Nathan Bedford Forrest Park Name Change Effort Causes Uproar

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The statue of Confederate fighter Nathan Bedford Forrest astride a horse towers above the Memphis park bearing his name. It's a larger-than-life tribute to the warrior still admired by many for fiercely defending the South in the Civil War – and scorned by others for a slave-trading past and ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/nathan-bedford-forrest-park_n_2637953.html

Yes, they were wrong but the idea of secession had to be fought over and decided...but I'm not sure I would call these men traitors nor do I think every monument to the Confederate side of the War should be obliterated...many Americans bled and died on both sides of that War and I think their memory should not be erased....

Actions such as this taken by the Memphis City Council gives fodder to such as the KKK...


Agreed. In today's economy, why would the city want to spend $$ changing signs, printing new brochures and updating web sites for this? Will someone one day decide to obliterate one of the faces on Mt. Rushmore for political (PC) reasons? These parks that are all over the US have borne their names for decades and, if nothing else, may spark a curiosity to visitors who may research the history. It think it's all rather silly.

Was Mr. Forrest and his legacy ever mentioned in your "approved" history books?

Yes, he was. As were all the major players of the Civil War. We didn't have "approved" texts when I was in school that I can remember. We had history books, period. They gave the facts, good, bad and ugly.

My point is that since many of the founding fathers were pro-slavery as well as slave owners, should we obliterate their names from the thousands of parks, cities, streets, libraries, and schools? Change our penny or blast Mt. Rushmore to remove Lincoln, who was a racist (until he wasn't)?** Forrest may have changed his views later in life too. He only lived to 56.

**Abraham Lincoln Quote

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

by:

Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865) 16th US President
Source:

Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
(The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)

http://markii.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/ ... ory-month/

There are English heroes and Irish heroes, all of the same war. As long as people love their homelands and as long as there are national conflicts it will be so. What makes Forrest such an exception are his post-war escapades (atrocities) and the KKK structure he gave to racal hatred in this country.

Yes, the war was about slavery. Anyone who doubts it should read Jefferson Davis' 2-volume history of the Civil War. He makes no bones about it.

The first battles of the civil war, imo, were in Kansas, where the question of whether those states would be slave or free was to be settled by referendum by the settlers. Lots of bloodshed, long before Ft Sumter, by settlers who rushed in to from both north and south to increase the vote count on their sides.

The event that actually was the proximal cause of secession, after all, was the election of Lincoln, because southern leaders believed he intended to abolish slavery. There were other issues and disputes that might have led the South to secede eventually anyway, but as it happened, it was slavery.

Very good points, roseanne. The difference is that they never fought the USA. They were not traitors.

Defending a country that was formed by savage murderers against supposed "traitors" is a tad ironic.

Andrew Jackson.

Would you call the native Americans who fought against their attackers traitors to the US? How about "American" sympathizers who aided them in their defense?

If you want to talk traitors, talk about Aldrich Ames or Julius and Ether Rosenberg.

If you want to be ashamed of pre-Civil Rights times or be outraged, think Trail of Tears. There was no more savagery committed against the slaves than against native Americans. Probably less, yet we tend to venerate the leaders of that time......

"Traitor" is simply a word that denotes the betrayal.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the treason is a different matter but does not change the act of committing treason.
For example, Benedict Arnold wasn't a traitor. He was a Loyalist spy.

roseanne wrote:

Defending a country that was formed by savage murderers against supposed "traitors" is a tad ironic.

Andrew Jackson.

Would you call the native Americans who fought against their attackers traitors to the US? How about "American" sympathizers who aided them in their defense?

If you want to talk traitors, talk about Aldrich Ames or Julius and Ether Rosenberg.

If you want to be ashamed of pre-Civil Rights times or be outraged, think Trail of Tears. There was no more savagery committed against the slaves than against native Americans. Probably less, yet we tend to venerate the leaders of that time......

As I wrote before, "it's not as if Northerners have so much to be proud of regarding the treatment of minorities."

Men like Washington and Jefferson certainly can be criticized, but they did many things for which they are recognized. They are not on Mt. Rushmore because they were slaveholders but because they were presidents and help found our country.

Erecting a statue or naming a park after a Confederate general because he was a Confederate general is much different.

There is the implication in these actions that there are those who are sorry the South lost the war and that the South was justified in starting the war.

roseanne, I totally agree with you about the native Americans. Our country was built on the blood of the native Americans. I have Apache and Cherokee blood. I've been in discussions where someone (happened to be German) talked about the savages. My comment was how they should have been far more civilized and used gas chambers and crematoria. The native Americans were defending their land.

We fought a war to become a country. Many can say that is what the south was doing. The south was not fighting to overthrow a govt. They were fighting to withdraw from a country. Our history is ugly. On both sides the history is ugly. Together, the history is ugly.

The KKK is a hate group. We can not close our eyes, though, to the fact that there are many other racists everywhere in this country. It was Irish Catholics who threw bricks at buses full of little black kids in Boston, for example.

I do appreciate Canada for being at the end of the underground railroad for the slaves and for being there for the native Americans, especially after Little Big Horn.