Monday Meeting - Duval County School Board - Final Meeting Nathan B Forrest High

[theduvalprogressive]

Join Us Monday!!!! Lets change Jacksonville for the Better!!!!

In 1959, an organization called the Daughters of the Confederacy lobbied the school board to rename Valhalla High School - a name chosen democratically by the student body - to former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Their choice was taken away from them by a group bent on making a political statement of defiance to the 1954 Brown vs. The Board of Education decision calling for integration of all publicly funded institutions specifically schools.

They lobbied for this renaming without consulting the students who chose the name or the community in private leading to Raines High School getting the football uniforms and the name for their team; the Vikings. All for the purpose of telling our federal government that, despite what our courts may decree, this community will uphold ideas of white exceptionalism despite what taxpaying citizens in the community who may not appreciate those views may think.

Nathan Bedford Forrest, despite what many area neo-Confederate apologist may have people believe, was a human trafficker. He had a company called Forrest and Maples that made a fortune in the buying and selling of human beings for the purposes of forced labor on southern plantations. They were known for splitting up families, beating women with wet leather thongs after they were stripped naked to show that they could take punishment, and they were also known for trapping runaway slaves and returning them to a life of bondage on plantations. There is no denying that his business existed and that is how they made their profits. They engaged in these activites despite the fact that slave trading had been outlawed in the county since 1805.

Forrest was also a murderous general. He was known for having had captured union soldiers of Afro-American decent shot or sent to any nearby plantation in need of labor. In Alabama, he even had troops on his own side shot, displaying their bodies for four days as deserters, despite the fact they were on furlough. He was also known for never attacking the "opposition", unless he had a superior advantage, as is the case when his troops overran Fort Pillow - with a almost a ten to one advantage - and proceeded to murder men, women, and children in cold blood despite their attempts to surrender, dumping their bodies, many still alive, in the Mississippi, attempting to bury them alive, or burning them. There is no denying this man's savagery despite the fact that former President Andrew Johnson ordered any war crimes prosecutions closed.

He was also the appointed head of a terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan. He was appointed in Nashville, Tennessee, and during his tenure over his klavern, instituted the midnight raid which lead to the deaths of 200 Afro-Americans attempting just to be citizens and whites, known as carpetbaggers, attempting to help transition the south away from the oppressive, exploitative society it was.

Forrest was not a good man. He was not a civil rights hero. Many apologists point to a BBQ that Forrest attended in 1875 as a crucial change of heart undertaken: the Brotherhood of Pole Bearers. Yet in the historical record this organization doesn't officially show up until 1909 - many years after his death. The NAACP wasn't founded until 40 years after his death and there is no action - unless one would like to believe selling prison labor is an act of beneficence - that qualifies Nathan Bedford Forrest as anything other than what the historical record of his actions makes him: a vile repugnant, homicidal, racist, who in any civilized era who would have been prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Any person who sees this individual as a good person who sets an example of the greatness of "southern heritage" worthy to be honored enough to overlook the positive contributions of Jefferson(though in many ways a flawed person) in demanding a Bill of Rights for our constitution, setting up free colleges for people, or of a scientist such George Washington Carver, should be pitied for their ignorance. Any person who can look at the Confederate battle flag and see more value in it than the contributions of an A Phillip Randolph who fought for the rights of labor, Lyndon Baines Johnson who attempted to fight a "War on Poverty", or a Martin Luther King who fought for human rights, is not a lover of liberty or has true respect for southern history. They only have a sentimental fondness for reactionism and backwardness that qualifies the suspicions of folks around the country about our city.

Southern history is not only looking to the past though there are many shining examples of southerners who have championed the cause of the people. An important part of southern history is in the making of it and, as a city, we can be a part of it by erasing the legacy of attempting to champion what was egregiously wrong and foul, by creating a new history, relegating the negative to only a mention in the annals of history. We can show the country that we are a city that is not interested in supporting the vile legacy of white supremacy anymore; that we are a "Bold New City" who supports all of our people and is proud of our diversity. Will you join us at the Duval County School Board in driving this point home?

Join us Monday, December 16th, 2013 at our School Board and let your voices be counted among all the other people in our city devoted to progress. We would love to have you.

-Robert Montgomerie, Jacksonville Progressive Coalition #ilovejax #jacksonville

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