Sea change?
by digby
Maybe we’re about to finally put an end the reverence for the confederacy, and the insanely provocative celebration of the KKK in the United States:
The bust of a Confederate general and leading figure in the early days of the Ku Klux Klan should be removed from the Tennessee statehouse, top Tennessee Democrats and the state Republican Party chairman said Monday.
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., and state House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, said the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest has no place in the Tennessee statehouse.
“Symbols of hate should not be promoted by government. South Carolina should remove the Confederate battle flag from its Capitol, and Tennessee should remove the bust of Forrest inside our Capitol,” Cooper said in a statement to The Tennessean.
Fitzhugh said he believes the bust should be displayed in a museum.
“In general, our Capitol should be representative of the people of Tennessee. Right now if you’re a young girl, like my granddaughter, Marley Mac, for instance, and you visit the Capitol, there are no busts in the building that look like you,” Fitzhugh said.
“For African-Americans, there’s only one — a fairly recent addition. So I think, generally speaking, we need to revisit what we have displayed in the Capitol so that it better represents a Tennessee for all of us.”
This stuff is all symbolic but these are very important symbols. This is meaningful.
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