License plate honoring KKK founder / Confederate general proposed in Mississippi

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The Mississippi division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had its first specialty license plate approved in 2002. The plate has remained the same for eight years, until this year when the group proposed five new designs to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

One of those designs features Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a heralded cavalry leader who also is known for commanding a massacre of black Union Army soldiers at the Battle of Fort Pillow and for being a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan.

It is the latter distinction that has some in the state calling for the plate to be denied issuance.

"I think it's offensive," said Derrick Johnson, state president of the Mississippi NAACP.

"We view the Ku Klux Klan as a domestic terrorist organization and they should be treated as such," he said.

The NAACP is planning to send a letter to Gov. Haley Barbour asking that he publicly denounce the license plate and use his office to prevent it from being issued.

Johnson said the plate is offensive to close to 40 percent of the population, which is the percentage of African-Americans in the state.

But supporters of the plate believe Forrest should not be dismissed because of that one time in history.

"It's been said he disavowed the Klan later in life and that puts him in the same category as former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and former West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd," said Greg Stewart, a Sons of Confederate Veterans member.

Both Black and Byrd had early ties to the KKK but managed to not have their careers overshadowed by them.

"If you don't like him, you certainly don't have to buy it," Stewart said.

According to Stewart, money from the purchase of the specialty tags will be used to restore crumbling confederate flags that are housed in the Department of Archives and History.

He hopes the attention being brought to the proposed Forrest design will raise awareness about the group's mission and the history of the Confederacy.

But Johnson and the NAACP believe a state license plate is no place to honor a man with Forrest's background.

"Our position is that any heritage of hate should not be tolerated in the state of Mississippi nor in any other state in this country," Johnson said.

The design featuring Forrest is being proposed for release in 2014. A vote by the Mississippi legislature would take place in 2013.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Don't they have "better" Confederate generals to do this sort of thing, like Robert E. Lee? :rolleyes:

[Princess Luna]

i support this idea 100% , now i will know what cars to key when i am in Mississippi. :cool:

[Geiseric]

I was reading this and thought, well we really don't need the south... We'll skip over it during the revolution, except for Louisianna and Florida

[psgchisolm]

I was reading this and thought, well we really don't need the south... We'll skip over it during the revolution, except for Louisianna and Florida

cool, you're gonna leave me out of all the fun...

[StalinFanboy]

lol freedom of speech lol

[NGNM85]

lol freedom of speech lol

I don't see any freedom of speech, issue. The state of Mississippi has jurisdiction over it's liscense plates. However, if this group wants to make a vanity plate, I don't see any means, or any reason, to prevent them from doing so, other than the dictates of good taste and common sense, which, sadly, are far from universal.

[gorillafuck]

It brings a smile to my face that the main organization inside the United States (besides the United States itself) that used to murder and terrorize blacks and minorities has been reduced to this sort of stupid shit.

[Fulanito de Tal]

lol. Let's make a plate commemorating a war that we lost.

[Geiseric]

cool, you're gonna leave me out of all the fun...

Ok, south carolina is in too... But what is to be done with racist teabagger assholes who live all over the U.S?

[psgchisolm]

Ok, south carolina is in too... But what is to be done with racist teabagger assholes who live all over the U.S?
They are a fad, they will fade out when everyone realizes how much racist they are. Armed confrontation wouldn't be productive, actually it could possibly be counter-productive. Just spread around information regarding how stupid their ideology is.

[Geiseric]

Trust me, I do :p

[graymouser]

Every car with those plates should be keyed, egged, and have its tires slashed. As a matter of principle.

[the last donut of the night]

funny how obama fistbumping his wife is seen as a terrorist handshake but car plates commemorating racist generals are seen as southern nostalgia

[TwoSevensClash]

lol. Let's make a plate commemorating a war that we lost.
"The South really won the Union cheated" A real quote from my friends cousin in Georgia lol. As another poster said why not honor Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson?

[chegitz guevara]

Jackson was an inveterate racist.

Forrest was a war criminal to be sure, but he did not found the KKKK. He was simply it's first national leader, and when the group became a racist terrorist organization, he left.

But he's still a war criminal. Which should make him a hero and get him sainthood in this country.

[HalPhilipWalker]

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is a neoConfederate hate group, dedicated to spreading racism and glorifying the Confederacy. They should be opposed on pure antifascist grounds. :cool:

[Red Commissar]

"The South really won the Union cheated" A real quote from my friends cousin in Georgia lol. As another poster said why not honor Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson?

They already do. AFAIK you already got many things like that, even an "observance" for Confederate remembrance in some areas. Hell down the way from where I live there's a school named after Stonewall Jackson, but most of its students are African-American or Latino.

Of course bring this up and like anyone else that goes into the Lost Cause nonsense, they'll ramble on about how that's politically correct and that they must remember their "heritage".

[Jose Gracchus]

Why does no one here ever post the goddamn link to the original story?


I don't see any freedom of speech, issue. The state of Mississippi has jurisdiction over it's liscense plates. However, if this group wants to make a vanity plate, I don't see any means, or any reason, to prevent them from doing so, other than the dictates of good taste and common sense, which, sadly, are far from universal.

What are you talking about? Your U.S. state does not approve and have its prison slaves (or however they do it nowadays) manufacture just any vanity plate approved. Governments routinely play favorites and propagandize with their choices - in my home state, also part of the Old Confederacy, we have "sanctity of life" etc. plates, but not "pro-choice" plates. Why should we not politically challenge governments openly collaborating with neo-Confederate organizations to preferentially propagandize the public with messages about romanticized historical domestic terrorists?

[NGNM85]

Why does no one here ever post the goddamn link to the original story?

Here’s where I first encountered it, on Jonathan Turley’s blog;

http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/13/mississippi-sons-of-confederate-veterans-propose-license-plate-to-honor-civil-war-general-who-was-once-a-member-of-the-ku-klux-klan/

The blog entry has links to five other news sites.


What are you talking about? Your U.S. state does not approve and have its prison slaves (or however they do it nowadays) manufacture just any vanity plate approved. Governments routinely play favorites and propagandize with their choices - in my home state, also part of the Old Confederacy, we have "sanctity of life" etc. plates, but not "pro-choice" plates. Why should we not politically challenge governments openly collaborating with neo-Confederate organizations to preferentially propagandize the public with messages about romanticized historical domestic terrorists?

I was responding to the question as to whether or not there is a free speech issue, here. Admittedly, I am not an expert on license plates. I’m still not an expert, but now I know a little more than I did. Obviously, the state has the right over which license plates it chooses to approve, that isn’t censorship. (However, I tend to think this will be rejected.) What I was thinking of, is that this group could make up those decorative plates for the front of the car (In recent years, states have moved towards requiring numbered license plates on the front and back, however, Mississippi is not one of those states.) which, in technical terms, are designated ‘novelty’ plates. (Not ‘vanity’, or ‘specialty’ plates, which are different.) that there’s nothing preventing them from doing that, beyond, again, common sense and good taste. Nor should there be. That would be a ‘freedom of speech’ issue.

[Broletariat]

Nor should there be. That would be a ‘freedom of speech’ issue.

Why are we defending the liberal notion of freedom of speech? I thought we wanted to get rid of Capitalism, not support the ideological basis of it.

[Amphictyonis]

KKK license plates made by black prisoners. The reason the KKK is no longer relevant? Half the US black population has been put in prison, probation or parole by the new KKK, the US government.

[Weezer]

lol freedom of speech lol

sup liberal

[gorillafuck]

Why are we defending the liberal notion of freedom of speech? I thought we wanted to get rid of Capitalism, not support the ideological basis of it.Liberalism is not the ideological basis of capitalism, private property ideology is which is not necessarily liberal (nationalism isn't liberal, but it is the ideological basis of a certain type of capitalism). It can just serve it in certain situations as well as not serve it in certain situations.

Liberalism in this situation serves a racist organization, and if liberalism were to be applied to the immediate aftermath of the civil war in the Southern US (because believe it nor not, the US sent troops down to aid blacks in the immediate aftermath), it would have served racism. But if liberalism were applied to freedom of speech in Germany in the 30's and 40's, then that would not be serving capitalism.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Why does no one here ever post the goddamn link to the original story?

Probably because a lot of news stories appear on temporary URLS and you can find the current location of the article very easily by inserting the first sentence into Google.