Nathan Bedford Forrest is a symbol of the Confederacy, the KKK, and white supremacy. Following the example of Virginia’s removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee, we are asking that the Nashville government remove the monument honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest. 

Forrest was a slave trader, a cotton plantation owner, and served as the KKK’s first grand wizard. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens described The Confederacy’s ideology as being centrally based, “Upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”

Forrest has an extremely racist legacy that can no longer be tolerated. Nashville cannot glorify a statue of a man who stood for violence, hatred, and racism. We put things on pedestals when we want people to look up and think about the message it stands for. Although the statue is built on private property, the message that this statue sends reflects poorly on the beautiful and diverse city of Nashville as well as the state of Tennessee. We cannot continue to act like the civil war was about states rights and not the evils of slavery.