After debate, little change occurs on Nathan Bedford Forrest issues
NASHVILLE — Rep. London Lamar’s eyes welled with tears Tuesday as she walked out of the committee room.
She had done what no one expected her to accomplish — a young Democrat, advancing a bill to end Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in a committee that throughout the year has resisted taking up the legislation.
It was a victory for Lamar, D-memphis, and other members of the legislative black caucus who gathered around her afterward, embracing each other and celebrating the 29-year-old freshman lawmaker’s ability to advance legislation that would remove from state law a day honoring the Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader.
But it was a victory that only happened through an exhausting confluence of events: Some members walking out of the meeting, others not showing up, and hours spent Tuesday debating racism, something committee after committee has done in the Tennessee General Assembly when hearing similar bills introduced by black lawmakers.
“Regardless of what happens to this bill after today, it moving out of this committee sent a message that we can get it right,” Lamar said.
The legislation, also sponsored by Sen. Brenda Gilmore, D-nashville, is not currently scheduled to be taken up in the Senate and is not likely to be placed on a calendar before adjournment, Lt. Gov. Randy Mcnally’s office confirmed.
The House naming and designating committee on Tuesday also rejected bills by two other black lawmakers broaching the same subject: One, a bill by Rep. Rick Staples, D-knoxville, sought to remove Forrest’s bust from the state Capitol and replace it with another Tennessean who promoted racial unity.
Another, by Rep. Harold Love, D-nashville, sought to instruct the State Capitol Commission to establish a rotation of busts on display in the Capitol, limiting them only to people who served in the state legislature or in Congress and removing any current busts that would not fall into that category, such as Forrest.
Staples’ bill failed while the committee voted to defer action on Love’s “indefinitely.”
“Sometimes, you’ve got to catch a little hell to do right,” Staples told committee members as he pleaded with them to pass his bill to remove Forrest’s bust. “Sometimes it’s going to get hot and hard when you’re trying to help people. The road to change is not easy.”
Rep. Jerry Sexton, R-bean Station, was among those on the committee opposing the bill. He offered that he was not a racist for not voting in favor of the legislation and said others could call him “whatever you want.”
“Who knows, maybe some of us will be slaves one day,” said Sexton, who is white, without explaining what he was referring to. “Laws change.”
Rep. Andy Holt, R-dresden, cast a crucial vote in approving Lamar’s bill, despite having attempted earlier in the meeting to defer action on it.
Tensions ran high as Rep. Larry Miller, another black Democratic lawmaker from Memphis, shouted from the back of the room about Holt’s attempt to delay a vote on Lamar’s bill. Miller walked out of the room.
Afterward, Holt said he decided to vote in favor of the legislation “because it’s a step in the right direction.”
But on Staples’ bill, which Holt voted against, Holt suggested that those supporting a bill to remove only the Forrest bust were not being “intellectually honest” by not also pushing for the removal of an outdoor statue of President Andrew Jackson.
Like Forrest, Jackson was also a slave owner, though Jackson also led the genocide of Native Americans in the Indian Removal Act.
Forrest notably led the battle at Fort Pillow in West Tennessee, where more than 200 surrendered Union soldiers, most of them black, were killed by Forrest’s Confederate troops.
Rep. Bo Mitchell, D-nashville, told colleagues just before they voted against Staples’ legislation that he believed they all knew the Forrest bust should come down after hearing their black colleagues speak for years about how its presence is offensive and hurtful.
“You just haven’t figured out the right way to get enough political cover” to go through with it, Mitchell said.
The Capitol Commission and Historical Commission currently are considered the two entities with the ability to jointly authorize the removal of the Forrest bust, though the legislature could decide on its own to do so.
Senate declines to eliminate Forrest Day from special observations
In the Senate state and local committee, Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro, D-nashville, pushed back on colleagues for their reluctance to altogether eliminate the day of observation in Forrest’s honor.
The bill, among those in Gov. Bill Lee’s legislative package and different from the one the House committee heard Tuesday, was originally filed to do what Lamar’s bill did: Delete the July 13 occasion from a list of Tennessee’s days of observation.
But Lee’s administrative bill to do so was ultimately amended to leave all current days of observation on the calendar and instead remove the statutory requirement that the governor proclaim any specific day, as Lee must currently do.
The state currently lists Forrest Day, Robert E. Lee Day and Confederate Decoration Day among other official days of observation.
“It allows the governor to wash his hands of it and he doesn’t have to sign this proclamation, but it preserves this as a state holiday,” Yarbro said of the amended bill.
Such a compromise will “let the governor avoid an embarrassing moment,” as Lee experienced last July after drawing national scrutiny over signing the proclamation, while declining to take action on removing it from the state’s celebrations, Yarbro said.
He spoke at length about his own conviction to do something about the matter, explaining how he grew up in Dyersberg roughly 30 miles from Fort Pillow, aware of the history, and “it’s time we actually reckon with it here.”
“This is a holiday that exists for someone who rose from rags to riches by selling people, literally selling human beings, down the river into Deep South slavery,” Yarbro said.
Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-franklin, who sponsored the bill for Lee, said the governor’s administration helped come up with the amendment, and the governor was fine with that approach.
In his earlier presentation to the committee, Johnson sold the bill as legislation that merely corrected a “separation of powers” issue with the legislature commanding the governor what to do, and not an attempt to make a judgment on the legitimacy of any of the state’s special days of observation.
The day before, the Senate passed a bill that will likely stifle any efforts to remove the Forrest bust through a Capitol Commission vote, adding the House and Senate chief clerks to the panel. Doing so is expected to tie a decision on removing Forrest’s bust, were the issue put up for a vote by the commission.
In the House on Monday, Rep. Mike Carter, R-ooltewah, apologized on the floor for having said to a black colleague earlier in the day he must have been looking for the “secret formula to Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
During a tearful speech, Carter said he wanted to work toward “racial reconciliation.” House members applauded.
The General Assembly will likely adjourn in the next week with no plans for the Confederate bust’s removal and with Nathan Bedford Forrest Day still on the books, though without the requirement the governor sign a proclamation for it.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.