On Thursday, the second day of his “Rural Road Trip Tractor Tour,” Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee stopped in Johnson City, Tennessee, where WJHL TV asked him where he stands on the removal of the bust of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Tennessean, from the State Capitol.
“It is a delicate balance,” Lee told WJHL.
“We can’t wash away history just because a few are offended by that. In fact, it is important that we remember history, the people that came before us, so we know where we came from and who we are. But also to remember the parts of our history that we are not happy about and that we never want to repeat,” Lee added.
You can watch the video of WJHL’s interview of Lee here:
According to the WJHL’s reporting, Lee did not specifically state whether he agreed or disagreed with Governor Bill Haslam, who on Monday advocated “for the removal of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol in Nashville.”
“My position on this issue has not changed – I do not believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol. The General Assembly has established a process for addressing these matters and I strongly encourage the Capitol Commission and the Historical Commission to act,” Haslam said in a statement issued Monday, as The Tennessee Star reported:
Dozens of protesters gathered at the Capitol Monday to demand that the bust come down, according to Nashville Public Radio. The bust was installed in the 1970s and ever since there have been calls periodically to remove it, the last time being after the Charleston church shooting in 2015.
State Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) was at the protest and told Nashville Public Radio that Tennessee needs to deal with its past involvement in slavery, including the buying and selling of slaves in Nashville.
“We got to take that seriously, because what I think we saw this weekend is that, when you fail to deal with your history, when you suppress that, we’re letting these things come out, letting violence out,” Yarbro said. “We have to be better than that.”
Meanwhile, the city of Memphis is pressing its case to remove a statue of Forrest from a city park, reports WREG News Channel 3.
Memphis City Council voted to remove the statute in 2015 but the Tennessee Historical Commission denied the request. City officials plan to appeal at the next meeting of the state board in October, and have said they’ll take their fight to the Tennessee Supreme Court if their appeal isn’t granted. The statue of Forrest was dedicated in 1905.
On Wednesday, Lee kicked off his “Rural Road Trip Tractor Tour” in Mountain City, in the far northeastern tip of Tennessee.
He was in Johnson City and Bean Station on Thursday.
On Friday he visited White Pine and Knoxville.
