Randy McNally and Cameron Sexton choose populism in opposing Nathan Bedford Forrest bust removal | Opinion – The Tennessean

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton voted against relocating Nathan Bedford Forrest's bust. Here's what they're missing.

Anighya H.D. Crocker| Guest Columnist

Workers remove bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from State Capitol

The bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, was removed from the State Capitol

Jeremiah O. Rhodes, Nashville Tennessean

On July 22, the long battle over the fate of Nathan Bedford Forrests bust at the Capitol seemed to end.

The State Building Commission voted 5-2 to move the bust to the Tennessee State Museum. The only no votes came from Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov.Randy McNally.

Following their votes, the Speaker and Lieutenant Governor released statements defending their decisions.

I would ask that at this time you please pause in your reading of this article and go carefully review those statements (find them on their Twitter accounts:@ltgovmcnally and@CSexton25).

Communism? The woke mob?

What are these people talking about? What of the Republicans who have spoken in support of the busts removal? Governor Lee, Governor Haslam, Senator Corker? Are these career Republican politicians actually clandestine leftist Communists, seeking the exaction of some larger plot to erase history? Certainly not.

Editorial: Nathan Bedford Forrest's bust exits Capitol. Finally. Activists deserve credit. So does Bill Lee

The lieutenant governors statement admits that General Forrest is a problematic figure but advocates that the bust should remain, accompanied with context, adding that without such context we would have no state heroes.

Does the lieutenant governor mean to suggest that General Forrests character would be positively illuminated by a more comprehensive historical presentation? Well, lets put that to the test.

General Forrest was a known war criminal.

At the Battle of Fort Pillow in Henning, Tennessee, the General ordered his men to fire upon surrendering Black Union soldiers, murdering over 250.

This is supported by the findings of a federal investigation of the massacre, survivors reports, and accounts from men under General Forrests command.

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Confederate Sgt.Achilles V. Clark wrote to his sisters, The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negros would run up to our men fall on their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down… Blood, human blood stood about in pools and brains could have been gathered up in any quantity. I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued.

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After the war, General Forrest served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and established the Klans state infrastructures which then carried out various assassinations of Republican politicians.

Additionally, the KKK under Forrests leadership committed countless night raids, during which Black citizens and white Republicans were dragged from their homes, whipped, and hanged. It is a historical fact that General Forrest organized and was perhaps even present for some of these raids.

Is this seditious, anti-American, anti-Republican, murderous, war criminal the imperfect person the Speaker suggests helped create a country that stands for hope, opportunity, and liberty?

Both the speaker and the lieutenant governor attempt to legitimize their heinous assertions by linking them with the same old admonition that conservatives have clung to for time immemorial: we must learn from our past or we are doomed to repeat it.

So, why then not erect a monument in our Capitol dedicated to those Americans who were savagely murdered by General Forrest?

Even the lieutenant governors insinuation that General Forrest is a Southern symbol is historically inaccurate.

In addition to being the last state to secede, Tennessee sent more soldiers to join the Union than any other Confederate state.

In his own time, General Forrest did not represent the interest of thousands of Tennesseans. And yet, through some remarkable lens of craven revisionist populism, the lieutenant governor asserts that he now occupies a place in our social milieu as a Southern symbol?

It is bewildering to consider that these two stewards of the self-proclaimed Party of Lincoln," now call Nathan Bedford Forrest (an avowed enemy of Lincoln) an American Hero.

In truth, I doubt that either of them have given much consideration to the historical underpinnings of Nathan Bedford Forrests legacy or the implications of their statements.

Instead, these men have traded in on the cheap luxury of populism. They extend an open hand, filled with a poisonous revisionist lie and urge the public to eat it up. Well, I say to the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House that the good people of this state are beyond their shameful attempts to mislead and frighten them into going along with this loathsome lie.

The people of this state deserve better leadership.

Anighya H.D. Crocker is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, with a major in law, history, and society and a current Student at Duke Law School. He serves as the minister of music at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Greenbrier, Tennessee.

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Randy McNally and Cameron Sexton choose populism in opposing Nathan Bedford Forrest bust removal | Opinion - The Tennessean