I Guess I Just Don’t Understand

Yesterday Breitbart.com posted an article about Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. On July 7, the Memphis (Tennessee) City Council voted to exhume his body and move it from the place it has been for the last hundred years. They are moving his wife’s body as well. They also plan to sell the statue of Forrest

The article reports:

The Forrest family has made clear that they are “solidly opposed to digging up the graves and moving them any place.” They are opposed to moving the statue as well.

Some believe the Memphis City Council vote is another example of the anti-Confederacy hysteria that swept parts of the country after a photo surfaced of alleged Charleston gunman Dylann Roof posing with a Confederate flag. But city council member Janis Fullilove asked if the move has something to do with a rumored “$500 million [University of Tennessee] expansion” that would use the land where Forrest is currently buried.

I might believe that the move was about the expansion of the University if the Council planned to keep the statue. The fact that they are thinking of “selling the statue to anyone who wants it.” does make me wonder.

General Forrest was a wealthy businessman who joined the Confederate Army after the war started and became a lieutenant general.

The General and his wife have been dead for more than one hundred years–they are no threat to anyone or anything. The man was defending his home state. I guess I really don’t understand why he and his wife have to be relocated and his statue sold.