{"id":3646,"date":"2011-02-25T20:28:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T01:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=3646"},"modified":"2011-02-26T16:54:54","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T21:54:54","slug":"recently-from-the-blogosphere-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2011\/02\/25\/recently-from-the-blogosphere-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Recently from the Blogosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest<\/p><\/div>\n

The Sons of Confederate Veterans\u2019<\/a> recent proposal for a Mississippi state-issued license plate in honor Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest<\/a>, who was also an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, has become the issue of considerable national attention. This controversy has been heightened with the refusal<\/a> of Governor Haley Barbour<\/a> to publicly denounce the group\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n

Forrest is a controversial figure in American history; praised by some as a military genius and vilified by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow<\/a>, Tennessee, and for his position as the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan following the war.<\/p>\n

When he was asked about his stance, Governor Barbour replied: \u201cI don\u2019t go around denouncing people. That\u2019s not going to happen. I don\u2019t even denounce the news media.\u201d He went on to add; \u201cI know there\u2019s not a chance it\u2019ll become law.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Penn State\u2019s blog of the Civil War Era, Sean Trainor, weighed in with a passionate response<\/a>. \u201cThis should not be, and it cannot be,\u201d he said, \u201cWe cannot allow [the] approval\u2026 of remembering so odious, so miserable, so unforgivable a figure as Nathan Bedford Forrest.\u201d Trainor characterizes Forrest as a man who earned his fortune in slave trade, who led a massacre of surrendered African-American troops, and the person who ended his \u201cillustrious personal history\u201d as the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n

He went on to say: \u201cForrest\u2019s memory is\u2026 offensive\u2026 to all Americans. No amount of military \u2018genius,\u2019 no feat or maneuver on a battlefield near or far will make Forrest anything more than what he was: a grim manifestation of America\u2019s most hateful legacy and the author of countless sorrows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloggers who defend the Sons of Confederate Veterans have shared their opinions in defense of the proposal. In a blog posted on “The Confederate American” website entitled \u201cNathan Bedford Forrest: Civil Rights Pioneer<\/a>,\u201d supporters express the belief that Forrest\u2019s name has been unjustly tarnished by the evolving impressions of the Ku Klux Klan and false accusations about his actual involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs usual, the NAACP and the news media are attempting to shape opinions rather than impartially relay facts.\u201d These supporters state that Forrest distanced himself from the Klan once it became a purely racial organization, and went on to embrace a \u201cradical\u201d doctrine that was \u201clight years\u201d ahead of other measures of the day, even in the North. They support this with quotes from a speech that Forrest is said to have made to a prominent civil rights group at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good name of General Nathan Bedford Forrest should not be allowed to be falsely demeaned by those with a leftist \u2018politically correct\u2019 agenda. On the contrary, he must be remembered as a civil rights pioneer who tried his best to head off the over 100 years of racial strife that followed the War Between the States.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sons of Confederate Veterans\u2019 recent proposal for a Mississippi state-issued license plate in honor Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, has become the issue of considerable national attention. This controversy has been heightened with the refusal of Governor Haley Barbour to publicly denounce the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,81,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-recent-news","category-reconstruction-1865-1880"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3646"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3666,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions\/3666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}