Nathan Bedford Forrest statue coming down is ‘good news,’ Sen. Campbell says
“It’s just so hurtful to people, not to mention it’s heinously ugly,” Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, said during the removal of a Nathan Bedford Forrest statue off I-65 in Nashville.
Rachel Wegner, Nashville Tennessean
The contentious Nathan Bedford Forrest statue that stood along Interstate 65 in Nashville for more than two decades was taken down Tuesday.
The move comes just over a year after the owner of the statue died. Bill Dorris died in November 2020.
The statue of Forrest, located on private property alongside I-65 south of downtown, portrays the early Ku Klux Klan leader and former Confederate general riding a horse.
A security guard initially told reporters around 10:30 a.m. the statue would be hauled out through a gate off Hogan Road. About 20 minutes later, reporters were told the statue would not be moved but stored in a shed nearby.
A few vehicles left the site and the security guard locked the gate and drove away just before 11 a.m.
“This has been a national embarrassment,” state Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, said at the scene of the removal. “I’m so excited. This is great news. It’s just so hurtful to people, not to mention it’s heinously ugly.”
Campbell had petitioned former Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration to take it down.
Nashville’s Metro Council approved a resolution in July 2017 that asked the Tennessee Department of Transportation to plant vegetation to block the view of the privately owned statue.
The state quickly shot the request down.
Dorris’ will
It is unclear who ordered the statue to be taken down. No announcement regarding why it was taken down or what is next for it was made Tuesday. Dorris’ will has been negotiated in probate court since late last year.
The will intended to leave certain real estate — including the Confederate flag display where the statue sat, an ice house and an artisanal well — to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He also laid out plans to leave a collection of Gravely brand tractors to a museum and $5 million for the care of his dog, LuLu, a 12-year-old border collie.
The rest of his estate was willed to the Battle of Nashville Trust. But he didn’t have enough cash on hand when he died.
The executor of the will, Trenton Dean Watrous, successfully petitioned the court to bring the LuLu trust down to $30,000 to cover her care through the end of her life.
Watrous could not immediately be reached for comment.
The plan was to sell a trailer park on Hill Road that Dorris owned to satisfy debts against the estate, according to a court order filed in August.
Companies 710 Hill Partners and Riverside Park, two Tennessee-based general partners, agreed to buy the property for $690,000 in August, and the sale was finalized in October, property records show.
Dorris’ estate still owns the Hogan Road property where the statue sits. Under the terms of the will, the Sons of Confederate Veterans would retain the deed to the specific sections of the Hogan Road property where the statue sat as long as they keep it in good condition.
Court documents show a tense relationship between the executor and Dorris before his death, as well as a claim the original will was missing for nearly a month after his death.
An attorney for family members involved in the court proceedings, Cathryn Armistead, said Watrous once tried to “lure” Dorris to a care facility, causing a “breakdown in relations” between the pair.
Watrous’ attorneys, led by John P. Rodgers, denied there was any wrongdoing in a back-and-forth over attorney fees.
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Pink paint
Dorris’ Forrest memorial has been shot at six times and vandalized other times, he told The Tennessean in 2017.
The statue was vandalized and painted pink that same year.
Before the 2016 presidential election, someone placed a sign that read “Trump 2016, Make AMERIKKKA Great Again” on a fence on state right-of-way property near the statue. State officials removed the sign shortly afterward.
The bust
In July, a bust of Forrest installed in the Tennessee Capitol was removed from the building, loaded onto a truck and driven away.
A crew of workers delivered the bust to the Tennessee State Museum, where it is on display with additional context about Forrest’s life.
The removal of the Forrest bust followed years of protests and pressure by activists, but is something that became a reality last summer when Gov. Bill Lee declared it was time for the bust to be relocated.
In July, the Sons of Confederate Veterans reinterred Forrest’s remains in Columbia.
Almost 2,500 SCV members and guests attended the burial.
The privately held reinternment ceremony — only attended by members of the SCV and their families — marked an end to a saga of legal proceedings sparked when a statue depicting the general and slave owner on horseback was removed from Health Science Park in Memphis by the Memphis Greenspace nonprofit in 2017.
The statue was acquired by SCV in 2019.
Natalie Neysa Alund is based in Nashville at The Tennessean and covers breaking news across the South for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at nalund@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.