Smoky Mountain Journal -Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's Call To Remove Bust Of Confederate General Getting Hearing This Week




The Great Smoky Mountain Journal Staff Reports Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:25 AM

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's Call To Remove Bust Of Confederate General Getting Hearing This Week
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's call to remove a bust of a Confederate cavalry general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state Capitol building is getting its first hearing this week. The State Capitol Commission is scheduled to meet on Friday to consider Haslam's renewed request to relocate the bust. It's the first step in a lengthy process laid out by Tennessee's "Heritage Protection Act." Haslam first called for the bust's removal after the 2015 slayings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, and again after this month's deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Forrest amassed a fortune as a plantation owner and slave trader in Memphis before the Civil War. His bust at the state Capitol was unveiled in 1978. (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)