This is an interesting situation; the one revolving around the statue of N. B. Forrest.
On the one hand, you have the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other like minded people appealing to History and Heritage and Historical Preservation in defense of the statue...oh, and don't forget The Law.
On the other hand, we have people like
Tami Sawyer saying she's glad to see that people in Memphis want to bridge the racial divide, but that we still need to have a conversation on why the divide exists.
Cool. Let's start with the history and heritage of the statue itself.
It was 1905. Bob Church was still the Boss of Beale St.
N B Forrest was as dead as Congressional Reconstruction.
Ida B. Wells had already been run out of town by the lynch mobs,
and
E H Crump Buggy and Harness Co. was doing well.
Lots of cities were putting up statues in those days. How very Progressive of the good "old" citizens of Memphis to erect a statue of one of their own; and by "good 'old' citizens of Memphis," I mean the vindictive white people who remembered the good old days when it was legal to steal people's lives and sell them on Adams St.
Undaunted by the loss of the "War of Northern Aggression," they pressed on and pushed back against the negro hoard, who for some unimaginable reason didn't want to go bacK to the plantation, so they started a Klub. N B Forrest was the first chief exeKutive officer.
But let's be fair here, all the Klub wanted was to dress up like ghosts and scare a mess black folks out of the city and back to the country where they could find more suitable work...you know, in the cotton fields.
"Yeah, we were just tryin to scare 'em...we didn't kill an awful lot of them...but you should'a seen it that one time when...it was so funny... Such a sight to watch them {insert slur} run!"
Who better to symbolize their heritage than N B Forrest? All they had to do was put his robes in the famous satchel he always carried, and dress him up like History.
Even after Forrest was dead, and whatever the condition of his soul, the rulers of Memphis couldn't pass up an opportunity to trot the old boy out for the sake of demonstrating and reinforcing their God granted superiority.
Only, except for the bronze uniform, the statue itself didn't even really symbolize the Civil War, or the brave men who fought for what they believed they believed (not stuttering).
In their minds, the statue symbolized white supremacy, and all the intimidation that implies (why do you think the damn thing faced South Memphis?).
The following is an item that appeared in the Memphis Daily Scimitar the day before the unveiling, so the statue was still covered by a sheet of canvas (or some other whitish fabric).
You can read or skip the whole article below if you want, but I'm going to comment on the sections I've highlighted:
Forrest Again in
White Shroud
Memphis
News Scimitar 30 Apr, 1905
Out of the past
and back from that mysterious state which men call death, Forrest has come to
his own again. Stalwart, strong and invincible, he sits erect on King Philip,
overlooking Forrest Park and turning his eagle eye toward the south just as he
was wont to do forty years ago when the chaotic conditions of life required the
organizing of the Ku-Klux-Klan for the protection of the honor and independence
of Southern social conditions.
Clad in his old
Ku-Klux garb, a pall of white that covered horse and rider, the great leader of
this secret clan rides once more by night, in moonlight or starlight calling his
own to follow him again. It may be only a mirage of a war-loving brain that
peoples the park again with spectral men in ghostly garb, but when the midnight
hour rings clear across the stillness of the sleeping city the greensward
becomes an arena where rank by rank, file by file, the old members of the clan
come to follow their leader again, crossing and recrossing from the shadow of
the trees to the wider open spaces of light, quiet, irresistible, determined,
as of old. From the widely scattered graves they come, the green doors of the
turf swinging noiselessly back, and horse and rider coming down the long lanes
of the past to answer the call of that leader whose iron hand held the reins of
safety over the South when Northern dominion apotheosized the negro and set
misrule and devastation to humiliate a proud race. From far and near they come,
for who of his old men would not come if Forrest would but call?
One by one they
come from the long green aisles that lead the way to the graves of the
Confederate dead in Elmwood, and shod in silence, they weave their way
across the streets of the sleeping city to the open place in the park, where
the leader waits. From lonely graves down in the valey (sic) they come again,
the long white garb fluttering in the night wind -- did you think it only a cloud
you saw?
Old men rise
from their sleep in comfortable homes, from soldiers’ refuges and from hospital
beds, and in their dreams ride out to meet him again. To watch the park would
disappoint you, for what mortal eye may see the soldier-spirit that comes again
to its own? You would see only mist-wreathe blowing hither and yon from shadow
to shadow, where a file of ghostly men of the Ku-Klux-Klan performed again
their intricate evolutions: you would hear only a sigh of the wind where the stern
warriors repeated in concert the great, binding oath of the order you would
hear only the scamper of tiny animal feet or the sleepy call of a night-bird
where the men called together of deeds to be done or wrongs to be avenged: you
would hear only the faint rumble of thunder where the great company of horses
trampled with pad-softened hoofs across time-hardened turf and granolith walk. A
phantasy of the brain you will say, for only to those who know will the
sprctral throng and its meaning be known. Only to those can the mysteries of
the night be interpreted, for by day one sees only a stalwart figure in bronze
and stone draped still in its sculptor’s canvas waiting for the cord to be
drawn that will reveal a fitting memorial to a man who served his country with
honor and distinction and with his sword carved his name on the walls of the
temple of fame in those days of long ago “when knighthood was in flower." A. B.
There is nothing in this entire panegyric that honors one soldier. The soldiers who are mentioned are forever connected to the then defunct terrorist organization.
That's the Nathan Bedford Forrest people saw when they bothered to notice the statue at all. Whether you know it not...whether you want to admit it or not, that's the heritage you're trying to preserve.
As far as The Law is concerned, you got out-politicked period.
The mayor and the Council found a loophole and exploited it. That's politics, and congratulations to them for pulling off a conspiracy in broad fricken daylight. It's the most brilliant thing I've seen all year, and it makes me laugh.
And just so you know, I'm as white as a mayonnaise sandwich. Hell, I like being white, but I hate the idea that some people look at me and see that son-of-bitch, and those like him.
You know the people I'm talking about looking at us funny; perfect strangers who look at us like we're the white person who put the chip on their shoulder, like it's our Heritage or something.
I wonder what would happen if we just owned the chip...owned our heritage, instead of drawing lines in the HIstorical sand.
<hashbrownsNOTMYHERITGE>
Now, if you want to keep on appealing to History, you go right ahead, because this mayonnaise sandwich is breaking his silence and joining the conversation.
Peace Y'all
