The Duval County School Board voted unanimously to change the name of Nathan B. Forrest High in Jacksonville... the new name has not yet been chosen, but officials say the name change will go into effect next year. Nathan B. Forrest is the person credited as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan following the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Students led the drive to change the name saying that Forrest was a slave trader and even ordered the execution of captured black Union soldiers during the war. Opponents of the name change claim that when Forrest started the Klan, it was to protect Southerners from greedy Northern Carpetbaggers, and that when the Klan's philosophy turned to racism, he disaffiliated with the organization.
Forrest's history is a complicated one....many in the South still view him as a war hero while in the North he has widely been forgotten and received a minor revival when his name was used as the title character in the film Forrest Gump.
Read the entire article here... particularly interesting are the comments posted by the public, proving that racism is very much alive in our great nation.
Thoughts?