Miss. license plate proposed to honor KKK leader EarthLink - U.S. News
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A fight is brewing in Mississippi over a proposal to issue specialty license plates honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the "War Between the States." The group proposes a different design each year between now and 2015, with Forrest slated for 2014.
"Seriously?" state NAACP president Derrick Johnson said when he was told about the Forrest plate. "Wow."
Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading the 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.
Sons of Confederate Veterans member Greg Stewart said he believes Forrest distanced himself from the Klan later in life. It's a point many historians agree upon, though some believe it was too little, too late, because the Klan had already turned violent before Forrest left.
"If Christian redemption means anything — and we all want redemption, I think — he redeemed himself in his own time, in his own actions, in his own words," Stewart said. "We should respect that."
True. The words of the former governor of Alabama George Wallace come to mind, "...segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" However later in his life he renouched his previous racist views. Why? Because after being shot he spent months in a long term recovery center where a lot of the staff of black. And that changed him. After being a notorouse segragonist his entire life these people were still willing to help him.
...A Facebook group called "Mississippians Against The Commemoration Of Grand Wizard Nathan Forrest" features a drawing of a hooded klansman in the center of a regular Mississippi car tag.
Robert McElvaine, director of history department at the private Millsaps College in Jackson, joined the Facebook group. McElvaine said Forrest's role at Fort Pillow and involvement in the Klan make him unworthy of being honored, even on the bumpers of cars.
"The idea of celebrating such a person, whatever his accomplishments in other areas may have been, seems like a very poor idea," McElvaine told The Associated Press...
...Johnson, with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he's not bothered by Civil War commemorative license plates generally. But he said Mississippi shouldn't honor Forrest, who was an early leader of what he calls "a terrorist group."
"He should be viewed in the same light that we view Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden," Johnson said of Forrest. "The state of Mississippi should deny any vanity tags which would highlight racial hatred in this state."
Does that include only vanity plates or anything else? Oh right, they want the Old Miss State's Rebel Colonel replaced...someone suggested Admiral Akbar from Star Wars but that's another post for another day. But the point is people on the left have a highly selective outrage. I wonder has Mr Johnson ever demanded the ouster of the late Senator Robert Byrd, affectingly known as "Sheets" to his friends. He was a Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. I wonder if he is angered by the screams of the Wrong Reverend Wright about "living in a country governed by rich white people!" I think I know what the answer is.
The NAACP has a great history. It moved to rid this country of racism in general and Jim Crow in particular in the south. But today's it's nothing but a left wing Democratic party group that sees nothing wrong with racist (Byrd, Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton) as long as they continue a leftist agenda. What a waste...and I wonder what a real problem solver like Booker T Washington would say to this.
Unwinnable. Forrest was a self schooled military genius but he will be reviled by those who know little of being nothing more than a Klan leader. Mississippi should probably just drop the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteBC
ReplyDeleteA comment at the end of the article gives me hope....
Democratic Rep. Willie Bailey, who handles license plate requests in the House, said he has no problem with SCV seeking any design it wants.
"If they want a tag commemorating veterans of the Confederacy, I don't have a problem with it," said Bailey, who is black. "They have that right. We'll look at it. As long as it's not offensive to anybody, then they have the same rights as anybody else has."
Hopefully more tolerant heads like his will prevale