Miss. license plate proposed to honor KKK leader

[somone]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110210/ap_on_re_us/us_confederate_license_plates

Miss. license plate proposed to honor KKK leader
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. – A fight is brewing in Mississippi over a proposal to issue specialty license plates honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the "War Between the States." The group proposes a different design each year between now and 2015, with Forrest slated for 2014.

"Seriously?" state NAACP president Derrick Johnson said when he was told about the Forrest plate. "Wow."

Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading the 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war...



Confederate massacre of black Union troops after the surrender at Fort Pillow, April 12, 1864

[Edweird]

1. I'm related to Forrest. Not by blood (I'm not a descendant) but by marriage.

If I recall correctly an aunt (great? great-great?) on my paternal grandmother's side married his brother or something. It's a tenuous connection to be sure, but our families are intertwined. I'm a little fuzzy on the specifics, but I can try to dig up the exact details if it matters. There's a 'Forrest' park in Memphis (near The Med and Shelby State) and my grandmother got all worked up when there were talks of changing it. This is the same grandmother that died no knowing she had two great-grandsons from my sister - they are 'bi-racial' and she made it VERY clear just how much she disapproved of that. Her loss.