A Florida school board voted late Monday night to keep the name of a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest at a majority black high school, despite opposition from a black board member.
After hearing about three hours of public comments, Duval County School Board members voted 5-2 to the retain the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. The board's two black members cast the only votes to change the name.
"Nathan Bedford Forrest was a terrorist and a racist," argued board member Brenda Priestly Jackson, who is black.
Betty Burney, the board chairman and the board's other black member, also voted against retaining the name.
"It is time to turn the page and get beyond where we are," she said.
Board member Tommy Hazouri voted to keep the name and said it is difficult to know "who the real Forrest is."
The board listened to passionate arguments from those on both sides. More than 140 people crowded into the meeting room, with another 20 watching the meeting on a television in the lobby.
Many urged a name change, saying the Forrest name was an insult.
"Nathan Bedford Forrest was part of the Ku Klux Klan, no matter how you put it. Nathan Bedford Forrest needs to be changed," said Stanley Scott, who is black.
But several spoke favorably of the general, saying the perceptions that Forrest was an evil man who ordered the massacre of Union troops were incorrect.
June Cooper, who graduated from Forrest in 1970, said some people wanted to wipe out Southern history.
"He was a good man," said Cooper, who is White. Nathan Bedford Forrest "was a military genius."
Reprinted from News Cottage. No copyright restriction detected.
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