Who was Nathan Bedford Forrest?

[Cheshire Cat]

Well now...that is special.

While we are at it lets just shoot and eat every endangered species we can. Lets knock down anything not built after 1980. Lets close all the mom and pop businesses and only shop at "approved" stores.  Lets close every business that isn't funded by the Government.  No more non-franchise restaurants...you get chains only. Heck, lets burn all the books that do not have the "correct" way of thinking. Knock down every tombstone, monument, fountain, and plaque.  We can rename every bridge, building, highway,battlefield, school to something above the Mason-Dixon line (so we can look cool to them..what we have down here just sucks right?). 

Diane...you supported Black heritage with the restoration of a hospital downtown. Why? Why do we need that? Mow it down. We do not need our own identity or history.  After all Jacksonville is a Yankee town! We are wannabes!  We can be told what we are once we forget our real roots. In fact lets just demolish the fort at St. Augustine or we rename it after Colin Powell! YAY!   You know what....once we get all the above done...lets all just wear the approved uniforms...okay? Cool!

I do not believe for one minute most of you "get" it.  All you see is "KKK" and that is sad. The big picture is so much more. Eat what you have been cooking for years folks....renaming this is bad. There is no other way to slice it.

Yes I did support the effort to restore and save the historic "Brewster Hospital" and in fact was the driving force behind getting this done.  It took ten years time to do it too, so I am no stranger to facing off with foolish folk who wish to argue a point by presenting straw man arguments.  Firstly, Nathan B. Forrest has no historic connection to Jacksonville.  The Brewster building is one of the oldest structures in Jacksonville built here in 1865, twenty years earlier than originally thought.  It's history as the first Black hospital in our city and the S.E. is a driving part of Black history, that did not include enslaving people but rather allowing them to become nurses, doctors, professors and medical professionals and this is pure Jacksonville history, not a broad reaching association.  People were not murdered there, they were healed.  The hospital itself was a lesson in inclusiveness and that was evidenced by the fire of 1901 after which folks black and white fled to the Brewster for medical treatment and it was provided to all. Frankly I am appalled by thinking that would attempt to put the racist beliefs and murderous actions of a man not from Jacksonville in the same category as the Brewster.  It is utterly ridiculous to invoke the name of the Brewster or my association with it as an emotional ploy and attempt to excite thinking by suggesting that all history should be torn down.  This is a name change to a school, not about tearing the school down.  You certainly have worked very hard to justify and spin your personal views about this name change into an issue that in your mind is about "intolerance" on the part of people who understand three important facts.  One, Nathan B. Forrest has no historical connection to Jacksonville.  Secondly, that he was responsible for creating a racist organization and ordering the massacre of hundreds of imprisoned people. The third fact is the glaring reality that in the year 2013 enough people have grown in their understanding about the ugly attached to racism that they refuse to allow a vestige of hatred, in this case Forrest be the moniker for higher education in a non segregated school.  You claim to love Jacksonville, more than anyone else.  Seriously? Your words don't portray a love of community at all but rather the aim of an apologist who would excuse both the racism and murders perpetuated by Forrest and call it local flavor.

[BridgeTroll]

I propose a compromise.  To honor a Confederate officer and Commanding Rebel Officer at the Battle of Olustee... rename Forrest to Joseph Finegan High.  Mascot can remain the Rebels... He seems to have been an honorable fellow... Everyone should be happy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Finegan

It is either this or Skynrd High... 

[Sgarey123]

Look, I am being inclusive here....the people who want to rename are playing offense. They want to remove and replace to make one group happy at the expense of the other!  Its one thing to want honor someone but quite another to dishonor another to do it.

I want the name to stay because I like our local flavor! I am proud that we haven't turned our back on the last few generations based off of lies and surveys from another region. I say to heck with them if they don't like it. This is the SOUTH in the State of Florida in the bold city of Jacksonville! We are the home to many and honor everyone equally.

I know the regulars on this board a r e preservationists and its makes me respect you for that however the same reasons apply to the name of the school...it is special. Just as cool as the indian names of things around here...just as cool as Bewsters hospital.

Why the war path folks? Why is one culture any better than another? We need all the differences we can get here. Why reward those on the war path? 

Renaming is bad for Jacksonville...It seems many agree!

[Sgarey123]

Progress...

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-11-04/story/forrest-sac-members-ok-school-name-staying-same

[Cheshire Cat]

I think this guy is just messing with you all now. Literally makes no sense. No points. No rationale. Talking in circles and thinks everyone agrees with him.

I believe he's probably drinking some Rye Whiskey right now and laughing his ass off.

Apache, this is my sense as well.

[Sgarey123]

Somebody has to stop the mob. Kill the smear campaign.  Stand up for whats right and not what popular....The big difference is I choose to preserve and honor all. You guys seem to think it is "OK" to leave one group out! The largest group...the base of the soup! 

The one moment in the history of the country that defined everything means nothing to you guys.  You deny it had any affect on your lives. You want to tarnish one of it finest soldiers.  I mean do you realize how cruel that war was? If you lived and didn't lose a limb it was miracle!

Did any of you go to high school there? How about any of the others named after Confederate heroes?

Have you ever watched a football game in the cold while the band's drums are thundering...a players scores a touchdown...and a Confederate soldier fires a cannon!  BAM! Black and white kids cheering onward under one banner for their school...chanting the name of the honored warrior that we all admire and hope to measure up to.   

I reckon not.  You want us to chant to Colin Powell. Better yet you want to take that all away. For what? To make some guy named Omotao happy? To make people who do not live here happy? The news? The New Yorkers? No Way...

I make total sense. Those that disagree can try to divert. But keeping the name is the right thing to do.

[edjax]

^^just a FYI. I don't believe you could get Colin Powell as the name anyway.  I recall reading something I believe that Duval County has a current policy in place where no schools can be named any longer after any person dead or alive.

[Cheshire Cat]

If you even halfway believed your own hype, sgarey, you would be the first person asking that Nathan Bedford's name not be dishonored by allowing a bunch of racist segregationists from the 1960s to smear his memory.

I don't think you care one whit about southern history.

And the rest of us don't care one whit about whether or not the Klan gets to keep its smug little joke up.

Yup.  Agree!

[Sgarey123]

Omotao was quoted in the paper suggesting Colin Powell be the new name.

Stephen,

Pretty typical to make character attacks when you have clearly no grounds left in your argument.

You are really calling me the "Klan?" lol   Wow...

I am the real Mcoy. Stephen...a true Floridian whose heritage includes both Spanish and Huguenot pioneers. I would not have anything to do with the Klan.  I have spent my life seeking out diversity. I also spent my childhood listening to my elders.

I believe everything I have written...and every thing I have written is true.

But know this....I can see a bully in the room on this one and I am merely pointing it out.  We must defend our local identity no matter what others say.  We can not be a town that endorses or cow-tails to smear campaigns against it.  We are a great City. We have nothing to apologize for.  Nathan Bedford Forrest was praised even by his enemies!

Read this and tell me this man was not an honorable man: 

Forrest's farewell address to his troops, May 9, 1865[edit]

Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men.

The attempt made to establish a separate and independent Confederation has failed; but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully, and to the end, will, in some measure, repay for the hardships you have undergone. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the Cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, has elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in arms.

I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.

— N.B. Forrest, Lieut.-General
Headquarters, Forrest's Cavalry Corps
Gainesville, Alabama
May 9, 1865

[Cheshire Cat]

Interesting link from the Museum of Southern History here in Jacksonville right off their FB page.  Lets connect the dots shall we?  Gosh, I wonder if old Sgarey123 knows the pastor?  They sound a bit like soulmates to me. Certainly seem to share the same passion for old Forrest and the same twist on history. Tell me Sgarey123, how much of your views are based in exposure to folk like the old pastor here who was popular enough at the local Southern museum to warrant a link shared about him.....twice....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDnwpNNiqDQ&feature=share  (click link for passionate you tube video where the pastor honors Nathan B. Forrest.)

and this......http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/john-weaver



John Weaver

30 New Activists Heading Up the Radical Right (2012)
Date of Birth:
1945
Location:
Fitzgerald, GA.
Ideology:
Neo-Confederate

A minister for more than four decades, John Weaver is a religious mainstay of the racist neo-Confederate movement and a man who has recently become a leading proponent of training Christians for armed battle.

Weaver, who earned a bachelor's in theology from Bob Jones University (which until 2000 banned interracial dating), is the pastor of Freedom Baptist Ministries in Fitzgerald, Ga., and preaches weekly in Waycross, Ga., and Live Oak, Fla. But his interests go way beyond preaching.

For years, Weaver was a leading member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group that opposes interracial marriage and has described black people as a "retrograde species of humanity." He also long served as chaplain to the Southern heritage group Sons of Confederate Veterans at a time when its leadership was largely controlled by racist extremists.

Weaver was much sought after by extremist groups. In March 2007, for instance, he spoke for five nights at South Pointe Baptist Church in Pelzer, S.C., at a conference sponsored by Christian Exodus. That group was working to get Christians in South Carolina to secede and was led by Cory Burnell, himself a former member of the League of the South (LOS), a neo-secessionist hate group.

"John Weaver is the quintessential Southern preacher, bringing the whole counsel of God with practical application to every area of life," Burnell said at the time. "He teaches the biblical doctrine of interposition as well as any man, and brings powerful illustrations from American history, with touching stories from the First and Second Wars for American independence."

Regardless of whether or not "interposition" is "biblical," it is a doctrine that was used by racist Southern state governments to defend slavery and, later, to try to "nullify" laws and court rulings against segregation. It is also one that the courts have repeatedly ruled unconstitutional.

In April 2011, Weaver made an appearance on "The Political Cesspool," a racist radio program run by James Edwards out of Memphis, Tenn., that has featured a veritable "Who's Who" of the radical right. Others on the show have included former Klan leaders, Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and fellow travelers.

Weaver has also taken up weapons in a big way. He recently became a certified instructor for Front Sight, a firearms training institute. At a Georgia LOS meeting in March 2011, he taught members to draw down on an enemy. He taught gun safety at the LOS national convention last July.

Also last year, Weaver spoke at the Church of Kaweah, a militant hate group based in California. Today, the church sells tapes of Weaver's sermons and also features him in a church video entitled, "To Teach Them War

[Sgarey123]

I have never heard of him before. I do not know him.

Someone like Forrest should have all kinds of fans. He was a huge personality. A real hero who led his troops into battle on horseback!

My elders loved politics and spanned both parties...spanned different levels of wealth too.

I have never even been to a re-enactment. I am a regular guy who appreciates his local history despite what Hollywood and the history channel says.  I do not appreciate people picking on this town or on the South. I think we are the best part of the Continent. Unfortunately our regional pride has been getting chipped away with a generational change and a push of propaganda.

I certainly do not think we should hire a man like Vitti ever again.  The nerve he shows coming in here and stirring up all this trouble...for what ends? Resume? He should be fired. This is what happens when we continually hire people from out of town for our highest paying positions. Pratt-Daniels went to a lot of work to put this issue to bed and then this guy walks in takes us backwards!

It's funny to even conceive that 1/7 of the population would not fight in the war...for their home and families. Did you know that hundreds of Black Americans attended Nathan B. Forrest's funeral?

Let's just hope that we can hold the ship together.  Fight back when people want to knock down our history...our identity. Stand strong an ignore those who would manipulate the mob and history for their own means.  We must ignore those that act like only "certain kinds" of history are worth preserving. 

Renaming the school would be like disowning a life long friend based on an untrue rumor.  Do we turn on back on our friend and believe a stranger? I say we support our heros and tell the rest of the world to worry about their own issues.

[Sgarey123]

Yawn back....

It seems to me that you are the hater..not me.  You are the intolerant one...the extremist.  The one who ignores the regional affiliation for where you live.

You can not endorse renaming and still act like an advocate for Forrest or the South. To support this you show that you only accept one side and are intolerant of the other.

[kbhanson3]

stephendare, you can not persuade someone to your point of view when that person lives in an alternate reality.

[Sgarey123]

All that you love about the South was built on the platform of strong regional and local pride.  That region fought a war and its only advantages were strong leaders and home field.

Renaming dishonors every name you just listed...do you not see that?

Is "racistly" a word?

[Koula]

One guest on First Coast Connect this morning suggested that we have so many Southern heroes that we could honor, so why do we seem to only honor generals? I would love to see public places named after artists, artists, and other folks who have had positive influence on our city.