The Selma City Council voted 4-0 with two members abstaining to stop work on the monument to Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest until the courts decide whether the city or a Confederate heritage group owns the cemetery property where the monument would be rebuilt. The vote came after a group of protesters marched to City Hall. Demonstrations by civil rights groups about 10 years ago led to the relocation of a Forrest monument from outside a city building near downtown to a section of a city cemetery honoring Confederate war dead. But Forrest’s bust was apparently stolen from atop a 7-foot granite memorial earlier this year, and efforts to rebuild it have drawn calls by civil rights activists not to replace it. Detractors say Forrest massacred black Union soldiers and joined the early KKK.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Selma City Council Halts Work on N.B.Forrest Monument
Outrageous. Unbelievable. Unfathomable. What else can describe the decision by the Selma City Council to halt work on the renovations and enhancements to the Confederate Circle and the Forrest monument at the Live Oak Cemetery in Selma. Injustice and anarchy and revisionists and political correctness and black racism prevails in the face of heritage and legality. By militant action and outrageous claims of injustice, a crowd of racially motivated demonstrators have influenced the legal and historical right to restore the final resting place of Confederate heroes and a place to honor them. Thieves stole the bust of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate defender of Selma and despite rewards offered, no one has been brought to justice regarding this robbery. The replacement of this bust and enhancements to the Confederate Circle including handicap accessibility improvements so that ancestors of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in defense of their families and homeland interred at this site could be honored. Vandals disrupted and damaged property at the construction site where a new monument pedestal was under construction, properly and legally Permitted. These same terrorists harassed and assaulted workers until a postponement of the construction work was deemed necessary. Local police literally stood idly by and offered not to intervene or apprehend these criminals but to document a report for posterity. The Selma City Council had previously moved the N.B. Forrest monument from its original historical downtown Selma location but now played ignorant to any deed or provision permitting the restoration of the monument and Confederate Circle. The Confederate Circle portion of the Live Oak cemetery was bequeathed to the United Daughters of the Confederacy to rightfully honor the men who defended the Cause and their homeland against the unConstitutional aggression of the Yankee invaders. So thieves, vandals, terrorists succeeded thru unrestrained anarchy to stifle the remembrance of our Southern heritage and honoring of our Confederate ancestors and veterans. Outrageous that the Selma City Council demonstrated such cowardice, ignorance, and ineptitude in postponing commencement of the restoration work on this hallowed ground. Outrageous but not surprising. Please support the Friends of Forrest as they must meet the challenge of a frivolous challenge and lawsuit meant to deter them from completion of this meaningful important restoration and enhancement work at the Confederate Circle at Live Oak. The following is a news article which the Associated Press distributed on Sept 25, 2012 regarding this dishonorable disgraceful development.
No comments:
Post a Comment