Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial. By the time he disbanded his troops outside Selma in 1865, he had become the most promoted soldier, north or south, having risen from the rank of private to lieutenant general. He’s a folk hero, both Everyman and Ubermensch. In the weeks after the Bloody Sunday anniversary, I began to experience a sort of Baader-Meinhof phenomenon with Nathan Bedford Forrest, seeing him everywhere, now that I knew to look. [9] The statue has been controversial since before it was installed. And so, as activists mounted campaigns to remove Confederate monuments, I began to follow those aimed at Forrest specifically. To tell his story, I would have to revise the story I told about myself. Even so, Memphis wanted to get rid of statues of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, and Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. "[8], Dorris died on November 24, 2020. The statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was commissioned by the Forrest Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and erected in … He is the Confederate counterfactual, the great hope of the Monday morning rebel quarterback who refuses to accept the war’s end or outcome. Around the time the statue was installed, the state cleared vegetation to make it more visible from the Interstate, primarily due to the efforts of then-State Senator Douglas Henry (D-Nashville). But a statue of Parton, an Instagram tourist magnet though it would be, isn’t the path forward. A year after Memphis took down its Confederate monuments, Nathan Bedford Forrest's folks are suing it for inflicting pain. Brentwood, Tennessee: Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue. Dorris described the process of sculpting Forrest: "Jack got some materials that I use to make bathtubs with. Bill Dorris is a realtor in Nashville, Tennessee. [24], Salon described the statue as something "fashioned by someone who's had a human described to him but has never actually seen one in real life. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. Comedian Stephen Colbert first quoted President Trump's tweets about "preserving the beautiful monuments" in the wake of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia then immediately mocked this statue by saying "apparently the Confederacy was founded by skirt-wearing nutcrackers riding wet lizards" and by mimicking the pose, shooting invisible soldiers following Forrest and riding an imaginary horse around the stage. ROME, Ga. — A special meeting of Rome's Community Development Services Committee will address a call made earlier this week to remove a statue of … Some are now asking what that means for the future of the statue. That goateed scowling face pinned to the corkboard in the gas station where I would often stop for breakfast? [20] Similarly, comedian John Oliver referred to the statue as being "objectively terrifying regardless of context", describing the statue's face as looking "like if a nickel did cocaine". There is a gilded fiberglass statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest off Highway 65 in Tennessee, just south of Nashville. It was another still and cloudless day in Selma when the Friends of Forrest unveiled their replacement bust. [11], When the Metro Region suggested adding vegetation, Dorris told WPLN that "I've got some 1,800-foot flagpoles. When interviewed about his statue and its subject by Nashville Public Radio, Dorris said that “slavery was the first form of social security. Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. The bust has been protested since it was installed in 1978. Please attempt to sign up again. JSTOR 3070019, news.artnet.com/art-world/10-terrifying-public-statues-recent-memory-311265/amp-page, Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County, List of Confederate monuments and memorials, "The One Appropriately Ugly Confederate Statue", "Jack Kershaw Is Dead at 96; Challenged Conviction in King's Death", "Statue Of Civil War General Forrest Still Draws Fire : NPR", "Nathan Bedford Forrest Equestrian Statue", "The 'terrifying' Confederate statue some Tennesseans want to hide", "State denies Nashville's request to block I-65 Forrest statue", "Forrest statue land owner fires back at blocking efforts", "Owner Of I-65 Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue Defiant Over Calls To Block View", "This Is the Worst Confederate Statue We've Ever Seen", "Metro Council asks state to block view of I-65 Forrest statue", "Conceal Nathan Bedford Forrest statue from I-65", "Nathan Bedford Forrest: Nashville Statue Raises Controversy", "Alarming Statue of a Racist and Horse Perfectly Honors The Confederacy", "Southern states seek removal of Confederate symbols", "Watch Stephen Colbert's Impression of the Confederacy's Dumbest Monument", "Stephen Colbert takes on Tennessee's Nathan Bedford Forrest statue", "Ugly Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue – Nashville, Tennessee", "The 10 most bizarre public sculptures - Art news and events by shairart", "10 confederate memorials that are somehow still standing", "Perhaps America should pull down this stupid, racist statue as well as the Confederate flag", "P.K. "[8], In June 2015 Gawker described the "alarming" statue as being created by a "fierce racist... for another bad man. One imitated the shrill yawp of the rebel yell. The residential street in East Nashville where I parked my car for a weekend of honky-tonking? Some call it … And so, through each generation Forrest’s legend has only grown. The Fight Over Monuments of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest Holds a Lesson About Whiteness in America. That empty pedestal, the woman told me, had once borne a bronze bust of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, but exactly three years earlier, on the weekend of the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, under cover of darkness, the statue had vanished. In July 2015 the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County sought permission to plant landscape screening in front of the monument to obscure its view from the interstate, but the request was denied by the Tennessee Department of Transportation. 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