By
Michael Bradley, Ph.D.
Prejudiced,
White Supremacist, slave trader, rough, profane, known for
violence---all these terms are often applied to Nathan Bedford
Forrest. What about Christian, prayerful, respectful of religion,
church member? Have you ever heard these terms applied to Forrest?
I suspect that you have heard them used seldom, if at all. Yet, both
sets of terms are true and both can be used to describe Nathan
Bedford Forrest. Like all of us, he was a man of many parts, a man
whose parts often contradicted each other.
Let
us examine the first set of terms. By the definitions current in the
21st
Century society there are very few white people of the 19th
Century who cannot be described as “prejudiced” or who would not
be called a “white supremacist.” In the 19th
Century the idea that Anglo Saxon people were superior to all peoples
of the world was a belief held universally in Western Europe and in
North America. So, to say that Nathan Bedford Forrest was a “white
supremacist” is to say that he was a typical white man who lived in
the 19th
Century. He was no worse, and no better, that 99 per-cent of the
rest of the people who lived during his era.
Jack
Hurst, in his biography of Forrest, says that the racial views of
Forrest changed more than those of any other major character who
fought in the War Between the States. During the Reconstruction
period Forrest advocated that African Americans be given every
opportunity to advance themselves economically and politically,
Forrest appeared at public meetings and espoused these goals in
political speeches. There is no documented evidence that Forrest led
the KKK and it is a well-established fact that he was not one of the
founders of that group. Despite the historical facts that Forrest
advocated economic and political rights for African Americans the
baseless lies about his racism continue to be cited.
Bedford
Forrest was a man of many parts---quick tempered, coarse of language,
prone to violence when provoked; but he was also a man who possessed
a sense of the spiritual and who respected the Christian religion, a
respect which ripened into belief and commitment. We cannot omit
recognition of this latter fact if we wish to have an accurate view
of this important, controversial historical figure.
