Getty/Handout
Three years ago, the Tennessee state Senate voted of 20-to-9 to keep July 13 a Day of Special Observance marking the birthday of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a millionaire slave trader, Confederate general, mass murderer of more than 200 Black Union POWs, and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
The legislature did remove a bust of Forrest from the Capitol and Gov. Bill Lee stopped issuing a proclamation on Forrest’s birthday. But Tennessee continued to observe July 13 as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day, and the lawmakers who voted to keep it bear some responsibility for the actions of Klan members who continue in the loathsome and dangerous tradition of the murdering insurrectionist who was their first leader.
Those lawmakers include State Sen. Joey Hensley, whose district includes Tennessee town of Columbia, where Forrest is buried and where this year’s Nathan Bedford Forrest Day brought some news concerning a current Klan wizard.