Nathan Forrest, a cavalryman for the Confederacy during the Civil War and one of the alleged founding members of the KKK — reports say he was the hate group’s first Grand Wizard — could soon be blotted out from Memphis history.
Vigilante gravediggers in the Tennessee city have begun exhuming the corpse of the divisive historical figure, according to a report from the Daily Mail.
On Friday, the protesters “broke ground” on the exhumation but did not finish. However, they threatened to come back with a back hoe in order to pull Forrest from the soil.
If they make good on the threat, it will be the first time since 1904 that the body of Nathan Forrest was moved. He died in 1877, and made the move to Health Sciences Park close to three decades later.
The current site of Forrest’s grave also features a statue of him on a horse (pictured above), which the protesters also want removed from the city.
Memphis Mayor AC Wharton has been pushing for this since news of the tragic Charleston shootings broke, but it’s not something he can do without approval of other sections of government.
The protest group are calling themselves the Commission on Religion and Racism. They are led by Isaac Richmond, who had this to say in comments to WREG about the push to blot out Forrest from the city of Memphis.
“If he’s gone, some of this racism and race-hate might be gone. We got a fresh shovel full, and we hope that everybody else will follow suit and dig him up…. We are going to bring the back hoe, the tractors and the men with the equipment to raise Bedford [middle name] Forrest from the soil of Memphis.”
Previously, a spokesperson for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Lee Miller, claiming to be speaking on behalf of the descendants of Nathan Forrest, had this to say.
“The Forrest family is solidly opposed to digging up the graves and moving them any place. The statue just as well. They’re opposed to moving the statue too. This appears to me to be another knee jerk reaction to that anti-Confederate hysteria. Some people here are trying to get on the bandwagon in erasing Confederate history and it’s just wrong.”
Mayor Wharton, however, tells a different story, pointing out that Forrest never wanted to be buried where his remains are currently located. He said Forrest’s will “expressly states that Forrest wished for him and his wife to be buried at Elmwood Cemetery.”
Elmwood Cemetery was where the remains of Forrest and his wife were located prior to the 1904 move. Caretakers at Elmwood Cemetery have stated they would take the remains of Nathan Forrest and his wife back, but they will not take the statue.
