Tag: Confederacy

Memphis and the General: Of History, Heritage, and Homicides

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

untitled (2)If Memphis Mayor AC Wharton and the City Council expected that once they voted to remove the bodies of Confederate Army Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, along with the statue of the General on his horse, from the Downtown Park which used to bear his name, that there would be no resistance, they overestimated themselves.

On Saturday, Breitbart .com reported the story…

On July 7 the Memphis City Council voted unanimously to exhume the body of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest from its 110 year resting place and move it to another location.

The body of Forrest’s wife will be exhumed as well.

According to Local Memphis, the council voted to exhume Forrest’s remains from Health Sciences Park on Union Avenue. They plan to sell a statue of Forrest as well–they are thinking of “selling the statue to anyone who wants it.”

Forrest was a businessman who become wealthy in the cotton trade prior to the Civil War. He abandoned that to fight federal forces once the war commenced, eventually becoming a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army. He was known for waging brutal warfare against federal forces in Mississippi and Tennessee.

The Forrest family has made clear that they are “solidly opposed to digging up the graves and moving them any place.” They are opposed to moving the statue as well.

Some believe the Memphis City Council vote is another example of the anti-Confederacy hysteria that swept parts of the country after a photo surfaced of alleged Charleston gunman Dylann Roof posing with a Confederate flag. But city council member Janis Fullilove asked if the move has something to do with a rumored “$500 million [University of Tennessee] expansion” that would use the land where Forrest is currently buried.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Yesterday, a unique annual event happened, with the General looking on…

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) – Monday is Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in Tennessee, as prescribed by state law.

On Sunday, hundreds of Forrest supporters filled Health Sciences Park as a part of an annual commemoration and to rally support for keeping the statue in place after the city council voted to remove the statue and the graves of Forrest and his wide.

Today’s event included Civil War re-enactors. Many brought Confederate flags.

“We’re here to show support to leave the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the park,” said Robert Rubel of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Liberals will tell you that the men and women, who came to the park yesterday, were ” a bunch of Right-Wing Extremists” and “bigoted haters.”

They weren’t.

They were average Americans from Memphis and its suburbs taking a stand, protecting their heritage.

Y’know, I never thought that I would halfway agree with ANYTHING that the Liberal “News” Site “The Huffington Post” published, and then they posted this…

In the creepiest development to emerge from the Confederate flag debate yet, the Memphis City Council intends to dig up General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s bones. Sure, he isn’t the most loved figure in history. He was a confederate general and, well, yeah he started the KKK. But c’mon.

This war on symbols of the confederacy might just have taken the leap from ‘possibly understandable’ to ‘get the straight-jackets’ level.

Are we really going to open the grave of this guy, and his wife no less, just to prove that we all think slavery was wrong? How is this different from ISIS destroying relics from Ancient Egypt because they think they are immoral? History is not always squeaky clean…in fact, it rarely is.

The city of Memphis already renamed the park where Forrest’s remains are located. Something that most reasonable people can understand. However, going so far as to dig up a person who has been buried in the same location for over 100 years is a bit…well…it’s macabre.

Slavery was horrible…but it happened. Historical landmarks aren’t always happy places. Just ask anyone who has ever visited la Place de la Concorde or the Tower of London.

History often sucks.

We can’t erase history. We shouldn’t erase history. We should teach about it, so we don’t make the same mistakes twice. Besides that, Memphis has bigger things to worry about.

According to the FBI, Memphis was the 3rd most dangerous city in the country in 2015 with 200,000 or more residents. That’s a real problem if you call Memphis home. Perhaps the city council should be a little more concerned about the present than the past.

As a 56 year old resident of the Memphis Area, I have borne witness to the governmental mismanagement and resulting decay and degeneration of what was once of the friendliest places in the country to live.

There are still friendly people in Memphis, but, chances are, they work in Memphis and are living in the suburbs, like I do.

The mass exodus of Memphis taxpayers started during the reign of the last mayor, when Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton told taxpayers of a Caucasian persuasion, if they did not like the way he was running the city, they could leave.

So, they did.

Since then, violent crime in Memphis has steadily risen, to the point where some suburban husbands will not allow their families to enter Memphis during the day or night.

On February 6, 2013, the Majority-Black-Democrat Memphis City Council renamed three Confederate-themed parks, including the park in question, to prevent some State legislators from blocking such name changes.

The council passed a resolution to immediately rename Confederate Park and Jefferson Davis Park in downtown Memphis and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, which lies just a few miles away. The vote was 9-0 with three members abstaining.

And now, they are going after someone who cannot fight back…because he’s dead.

Meanwhile, the black-on-black homicidal genocide continues in what was once the “City of Good Abode”, now #3 on the FBI’s Most Dangerous Cities List.

It must be the Confederate Flag’s fault…or, maybe, the fault of the General and his wife…maybe even, his horse.

It has to be. Otherwise, the people who have been responsible for the descent of “The City of Good Abode” into Detroit South, where black Americans are being murdered every night of the week, would have to be held responsible for their own actions.

And we can’t have that, now…

Can we?

Until He Comes.

KJ

Disrespecting the Dead: The House Votes to Ban Confederate Flags…at National Cemeteries.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

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CNN.com recently reported that

Washington (CNN)American public opinion on the Confederate flag remains about where it was 15 years ago, with most describing the flag as a symbol of Southern pride more than one of racism, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. And questions about how far to go to remove references to the Confederacy from public life prompt broad racial divides.

The poll shows that 57% of Americans see the flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than as a symbol of racism, about the same as in 2000 when 59% said they viewed it as a symbol of pride.

On the wall beside my computer desk, hangs my family crest, which I shipped to my Daddy (Southern Colloquialism for male parental unit) in the summer of 1978, from the York Insignia Shoppe in England.

This same family crest also hangs in the home of Jefferson Davis, distinguished Graduate of West Point Academy, and the President of the Confederate States of America.

 I am a proud Southerner.

As a Christian American, I attend church on Sunday mornings with my brothers and sisters in Christ, both black and white.

American Progressives, both Democrat and Republican, have taken advantage of the horrible church massacre in Charleston, SC, to accomplish something that they have been trying to do for years: minimize the South’s political clout and erase our uniqueness as a region, through the taking away of a symbol of our heritage, and, any traces of the historical aspects of the Confederate Side of the Civil War, as exemplified by the current mission of Memphis Mayor AC Wharton and his minions on the City Council to dig up Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, and move their bodies and a statue of the general, which all currently “reside” in a downtown park in the Medical Center.

And now, that same cowardly, revisionist history has reared its ugly head on Capitol Hill.

As they say (instead of “Once Upon a Time”) in Southern Fairy tales,

Y’all ain’t gonna believe this s@#t…

WTOP.com reports that

The low-profile move came Tuesday evening after a brief debate on a measure funding the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries, most of which contain graves of Civil War soldiers.

The proposal by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., added language to block the Park Service from allowing private groups to decorate the graves of southern soldiers with Confederate flags in states that commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The cemeteries affected are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi.

“The American Civil War was fought, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, to ‘save the last best hope of Earth,’” Huffman said in a debate in which he was the only speaker. “We can honor that history without celebrating the Confederate flag and all of the dreadful things that it symbolizes.”

The flag ban was adopted by a voice vote. The Park Service funding bill is scheduled for a vote on Thursday.

Pressure has mounted to ban display of the flag on state and federal property in the wake of last month’s tragic murders at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The accused killer, Dylann Roof, posed with the Confederate flag in online photos and reportedly has told authorities that he wanted to start a race war.

Following the lead of GOP Gov. Nikki Haley, the South Carolina Senate has voted to remove the flag from the Capitol grounds and the state House was taking up the measure Wednesday.

But House leaders have deferred action on a plan by Bennie Thompson, a black Democrat from Mississippi, to ban Confederate images such as that contained in the Mississippi flag from being displayed in the House complex. Numerous statues of Confederate figures such as Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States, are also on display in the Capitol.

A little over an hour away from where I sit, lies a very special place, where brother fought against brother, and are buried together, along with succeeding generations of family members.

The Shiloh National Cemetery at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., is situated on the west bank of the Tennessee River, just below the landing, and on the bluff immediately overlooking it. It contains ten acres of ground, and is enclosed by a rough stone wall of the most substantial character. A convenient lodge has been erected, and a permanent keeper is stationed at the Cemetery. A flag-staff has been erected on the bluff overlooking the river, from which the Union flag is kept constantly floating. The grounds are laid off into sections and groups by avenues and walks, neatly graded and graveled.

The number of interments in this Cemetery is 3,584, of which 2,359 are at present unknown. They represent 203 regiments from thirteen different States, besides colored troops and employees. The graves are all designated by head-boards numbered to correspond with the printed Roll of Honor.

These remains have been collected with great care from their scattered graves through that wild and desolate country, and on the line of the Tennessee River from Fort Henry to the foot of the shoals; and from no less than 565 separate localities.

The most interesting feature of this Cemetery will be found in the numerous Regimental Groups, of which there are no less than twenty-nine. These were originally buried upon the battle-field by their comrades, and great care has been taken to preserve the original arrangement. Occasionally the addition of a few scattered graves has been made to the original group.

On no other battlefield through the entire South and Southwest, does there seem to have been so great care and pains taken in the burial of the dead and in providing for their future identification. In the case of some of the regiments, even after the lapse of five years and the exposure of the head-boards to the annual ravages of fire, every grave has been identified.

Several years ago, I bore witness to the annual reenactment, which is held every Memorial Day on the Civil War Battlefield of Shiloh.

Cannons are fired, guns discharge, men feign falling in battle.

All that day, “Decoration Day” was observed, as family members laid flowers on the graves of those who had been laid to rest at  Historic Shiloh Cemetery.

This yearly event is a solemn occasion, a chance to teach young Americans about the sacrifices of those who came before them.

And now, a bunch of spineless jellyfish, far removed from that historic battleground in Middle Tennessee, are attempting to take away a solemn heritage and birthright, from the very people who gave them their cushy jobs, while they genuflect to the altar of Political Correctness and the philosophy of “going along to get along”, led by their High Priest John Boehner.

Spineless, Vichy Republicans and Hive-Mind liberal Democrats.

The dead can not fight back.

This is beyond disgraceful.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Memphis Changes Parks’ Names. Rewrites History.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics21 Comments

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In the former “City of Good Abode”, a bunch of Liberal dimwits have sacrificed heritage and history on the foul-smelling altar of Political Correctness.

I was born December 3, 1958 in St. Joseph Hospital in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. St. Joseph’s is no longer standing, having been torn down in the name of “progress”.

I moved across Stateline Road to DeSoto County, Mississippi from Memphis, Tennessee in November of 1997 for a very good reason: I was no longer wanted there.

Allow me to present some evidence…

From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Fearful that legislators in Nashville might intervene in the controversy surrounding Memphis park names, the City Council hurriedly voted Tuesday night to rename three Confederate-themed parks in the Downtown area.

By a 9-0 vote with three abstentions, the council approved changing Forrest Park’s name to “Health Sciences Park,” because of its proximity to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Confederate Park will become “Memphis Park,” and Jefferson Davis Park will be “Mississippi River Park.”

Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal City Council members William Boyd and Wanda Halbert are two of the nine who voted in favor of changing the park names. Three others abstained and one was absent.

Council members Jim Strickland, Kemp Conrad and Bill Morrison abstained from voting while Reid Hedgepeth did not attend the meeting.

The council also approved creating a committee to further study the naming issue. That committee will include two council members, two university professors, a representative from the NAACP, a member of the Shelby County Historical Commission and the city parks director.

All three parks have stirred repeated controversy because of their Confederate themes, particularly the one at Union and Manassas that contains the grave of Nathan Bedford Forrest. In addition to being a Confederate cavalry leader, Forrest was a slave trader before the Civil War and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after it.

“The parks are changed. It’s done,” said Councilman Lee Harris, who initially proposed renaming the parks after nearby streets. “We removed controversial names and named them something that is less controversial.”

The decision angered some who came to the meeting.

“I’m very upset. They’re trying to get rid of history. They’re trying to rewrite it,” Katherine Blalock said.

Added Becky Muska: “We continue to fight, whatever it takes. If it takes taking it into court, that’s a decision the historical groups will make at the appropriate time.”

The park names have stirred controversy for years, but the commotion erupted anew in early January after the city removed a marker at Forrest Park. The Sons of Confederate Veterans paid for and installed the half-ton granite marker at a cost of about $10,400.

Still, it’s likely the council wouldn’t have acted so fast Tuesday if two Nashville legislators hadn’t hurriedly introduced a bill that, if passed, would have removed the city’s ability to rename such parks. In fact, the council originally considered passing an ordinance that would have required three readings, but switched to a resolution on the issue because its effect is immediate.

The council also voted to approve its minutes Tuesday, which will prevent the measure from being reconsidered at the next meeting.

The “Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013,” sponsored by Rep. Steve McDaniel (R-Lexington) and Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), passed its first reading Monday. If approved, the measure would prevent cities from altering any “statue, monument, memorial, nameplate or plaque” erected for a number of military events, including the “War Between the States,” in the bill’s language.

“I’m not going to accuse them of being … meddlers, but you get the picture,” Councilman Harold Collins said. “There is no reason for these people in Nashville and East Tennessee to be in our business.”

Added Councilwoman Janis Fullilove: “We cannot allow Republicans in Nashville to sit up and dictate to us in the city of Memphis what we should do.”

It’s possible Health Sciences, Memphis and Mississippi River won’t be the final names of the parks, though. Even Harris called the names “bland,” and other council members agreed. Future names would likely come out of the committee that was established Tuesday night.

Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

According to 2010 U.S. Concensus Figures, Memphis is over 63% Black American. 6 Black city councilmen and 2 Whites voted for the name change.

But, you know what’s funny? No one asked them to change the names of those historic parks.

Driving home yesterday, I was listening to Ben Ferguson’s local radio program. Black caller after black caller said that they thought the name changes were “silly” and “unnecessary” .

One black caller actually brought up the historical fact that almost 100,000 Black Southerners fought on the side of the Confederacy.

The changing of park names is something that the Black Liberal Leadership in Memphis have been wanting to do for a long time.

It was a purely political move, designed to show the nation what an enlightened bunch of Liberal Leaders that they are.

Never mind that they are revising history.

To paraphrase God’s Word: “If thy city’s history offends thee, pluck it out.”

Or, pretend as if it never happened.

And, the City Administrators wonder why all the taxpayers have fled Memphis, like the Hebrews’ Exodus from Egypt. (Memphis, Egypt. Get the reference?)

Will the last taxpayer in Memphis, please turn off the lights.

Until He Comes,

KJ