https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigtrain
I am sure that you know that your post is disingenuous BS. Senator Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK in his youth, later calling it the biggest mistake of his life. He renounced the KKK, racism and segregation. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a traitor, an unrepentant racist and a sociopathic murderer.
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Forrest joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1867 (
two years after its founding) and was elected its first Grand Wizard. The group was a loose collection of local factions throughout the former Confederacy that used violence and the threat of violence to maintain white control over the newly enfranchised former slaves. The Klan, with Forrest at the lead, suppressed voting rights of blacks in the South through violence and intimidation during the elections of 1868.
In 1869, Forrest expressed disillusionment with the lack of discipline in the white supremacist terrorist group across the South and issued a letter
ordering the dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan as well as the destruction of its costumes; he then withdrew from the organization. In the last years of his life, Forrest insisted he had never been a member and
made a public speech in favor of racial harmony.
Much like Bob Byrd, Forrest denounced racism later in life.