Confederate statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest removed
The controversial statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest located along Interstate 65 in Nashville for more than two decades was taken down on Tuesday.
The move comes just over a year after the statue’s owner passed away. Bill Doris passed away in November 2020.
The statue of Forrest, located on private property along I-65 south of downtown Nashville, depicts early Ku Klux Klan leader and former Confederate general riding on horseback.
A security guard initially told reporters around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday the statue would be taken out through a gate. About 20 minutes later, reporters were told the statue would not be moved, but kept in a nearby warehouse.
Democratic Senator Heidi Campbell said: “This is a national shame. “I’m so excited. This is great news. It just hurts people, not to mention it’s horribly ugly.”
Campbell asked the administration of former Republican Governor Bill Haslam to remove it.
Nashville’s Metro Council passed a resolution in July 2017 requiring the Tennessee Department of Transportation to plant vegetation to block view of the privately owned statue.
Bang quickly shot down the request.
pink paint
The Dorris ‘Forrest Memorial Was shot six times and vandalized other times, he told The Tennessean in 2017. The statue was vandalized and painted pink that same year.
Before the 2016 presidential election, someone placed a sign that read “Trump 2016, Make AMERIKKKA Great Again” on a fence on a state priority property near the mural. statue. State officials removed the sign soon after.
Dorris .’s Will
Dorris’s will intends to leave certain estates – such as an ice house, craft well, and the Confederate flag display where the statue is located – to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. . He also plans to leave a collection of Gravely-brand tractors to a museum and $5 million to take care of his dog, LuLu, a 12-year-old border collie.
The rest of his estate was willed to the Battle of Nashville Trust. But he didn’t have enough cash when he died. Trust could not be reached immediately for comment.
The executor, Trenton Dean Watrous, successfully petitioned the court to reduce the LuLu trust to $30,000 to cover her care for the rest of her life.
Watrous was also not immediately contactable.
Dorris’ estate still owns the property where the statue is located.
Bust statue
In July, a bust of Forrest was installed in the Tennessee Capitol was taken out of the building, loaded into a truck and driven away.
A group of workers delivered the bust to the Tennessee State Museum, where it was displayed with additional context on Forrest’s life.
The removal of the Forrest bust After years of protests and pressure from activists, but that’s what became a reality last summer when Governor Bill Lee announced it was time for the bust to be removed.
Forrest’s remains have been moved
In July, the Sons of the Veterans Union re-cremated Forrest’s body in Columbia.
Nearly 2,500 SCV members and guests attended the funeral.
The privately held parade – attended only by members of the SCV and their families – marked the end of a series of legal proceedings that were sparked when a statue depicting the general and his owner Slaves on horseback were displaced from the Health Science Park in Memphis in 2017.
The statue was acquired by SCV in 2019.
Natalie Neysa Alund is based in Nashville in the Tennessean and covers breaking news across the South for the USA TODAY Network. Contact her at nalund@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.