In Tennessee’s culture wars, the cure and the disease are one and the same.
In a GOP-led effort to punish “cancel culture,” state lawmakers are attempting to cancel the Tennessee Historical Commission.
Earlier this month, the commission voted to remove a bust of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state capitol. Despite some late-in-life efforts to redeem for his sins, Forrest isn’t some borderline case. He was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a slave trader. As a Confederate general, he oversaw the Fort Pillow Massacre in which hundreds of black Union soldiers were killed instead of taken prisoners, as was the protocol.
No wonder, then, that that the commission approved the transfer of Forrest’s bust to the Tennessee State Museum by a margin of 25-1. Republican Governor Bill Lee supported the move. Civil rights groups have long protested the presence of a Forrest monument within Tennessee’s seat of power.
But yesterday, State Senator Joey Hensley, a Republican, introduced a bill that would replace every member of Tennessee’s Historical Commission.
Another GOP member of the state legislature, Senator Janice Bowling, explained, “In our culture today it seems there is a desire to cancel history, cancel culture, cancel narratives that are just based on fact. I think that that’s a dangerous precedent.“
It’s unclear if the bill has enough support to become law. At least one Republican lawmaker said he’ll vote against it. “That’s the process that we created for removing a monument,” said State Sen. Mike Bell. “Every time we get a decision about a monument or a statue that we don’t like, then we want to come back and change it again?“
Here’s earlier coverage of the commission decision from WKRN in Nashville.
