MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Officials at Middle Tennessee State University say they will once again seek permission to strip the name of a Confederate general from one of its buildings.
MTSU’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously last week to petition the Tennessee Historical Commission for approval to remove the name of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from an Army ROTC building. The commission denied the university’s request in 2018, but several new members have been appointed since then and the panel voted over the summer to remove a bust of Forrest from the state capitol.
“Seeing Forrest’s name on the building is painful and infuriating to many, including me,” MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee said in an op-ed column he wrote for The Tennessean newspaper on Aug. 20.
According to MTSU, the facility was built in 1954 and named in 1958 after Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The school said it was reportedly to honor his notoriety as a military tactician in the Civil War.
Two-thirds of the commission must approve name changes on state buildings, according to Tennessee state law.
NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this story.
