Nathan Bedford Forrest's legacy under fire as Florida school debates name

By Ron Word
Associated Press
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Nathan Bedford Forrest of Memphis was a slave trader, a Confederate hero, an early Ku Klux Klan leader -- and the namesake of what is now a majority African-American high school.

After almost a two-year delay, the Duval County School Board next week will consider whether to change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School to Firestone High, after the street it sits on. The board joins other Southern districts that have debated whether to strip Confederate leaders' names from schools and other buildings.

The squabble is part of the modern South's never-ending soul searching over the Civil War and its legacy, a discussion that often finds Forrest at the center.

"This guy was a brutal monster," said Steven Stoll, an adjunct sociology instructor at Florida Community College who is white and supports changing the name of the high school. "Why would you want to keep honoring a person like this? It is an insult to black people."

 

Born in Chapel Hill, Tenn., in 1821, Forrest settled in Memphis, where he made a fortune and was elected a city alderman in 1858. When the Civil War began, he raised a cavalry unit and led it with brute courage and daring that made him a Confederate hero. He is buried at Forrest Park in Memphis.

Forrest's defenders say his deeds have been exaggerated and have to be considered in the context of the Civil War.

"Forrest was revered all over the world and his tactics are still studied today," said Lee Millar, president of the General N.B. Forrest Historical Society in Memphis. "He became a hero to all."

Forrest High School in Jacksonville opened as an all-white school in the 1950s, getting its name at the suggestion of the Daughters of the Confederacy. They saw it as a protest of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that eventually integrated the nation's public schools.

Now, African-Americans make up more than half of the student body.

Two 17-year-old seniors at the school say the consensus among students is to leave the name alone.

"As students, (the name is) not a big deal to us," said Jamal Freeman, a black student, who noted it would cost a lot to change uniforms for the band and sports teams, called the Rebels.

Sabrina Lampp, a white student, said a change "takes all the memories away."

"He got a bad rap," said L.A. Hardee, a member of the board at Jacksonville's Museum of Southern History. "He was an honorable man. People don't take into consideration the times. It's a Southern thing. They ought to keep the name."