Consider this rather cheesy horror movie plot. A brutal, but brilliant, Confederate Army commander who spent the war terrorizing Union troops with guerrilla tactics, and after the war the commander becomes the head of the Ku Klux Klan as it emerges as a paramilitary terrorist force to threaten blacks and Republicans. Later in life the commander foreswears violence and racism, but he is nevertheless reviled as one of the worst of the Confederate “heroes.” He’s nevertheless buried with honor and given a place in history…until more than a century later, when a number of irresponsible, pandering politicians come along to unearth his grave and unleash his disturbed spirit back into the world.
Chaos and terror ensue, as the commander’s ghost haunts the city. Perhaps there are unexplained deaths occurring in ways only a movie can depict.
Stupid idea? Admit it. You’ve seen dumber movies. And besides, movie audiences might get a kick out of seeing slimeball politicians meet gruesome ends.
What it wouldn’t be is believable. Not the part about the angry, murderous ghost – the part about the ghoul city councilmembers voting to disinter the confederate commander.
And yet that part of the script is actually true. The details…
In the wake of a flap about the Confederate battle flag throughout the South, the City of Memphis is considering removing from a public park not just a monument dedicated to Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, but also his grave.
A Memphis city council committee voted unanimously to approve ordinances to remove the statue — which depicts Forrest mounted on his horse — and the grave, according to The Commercial Appeal.
But the effort faces a number of hurdles before it can be approved. The statue ordinance requires approval from the Memphis City Council and the Tennessee Historical Commission. The grave moving requires approval from the council, a Tennessee court, and the Forrest family, the Commercial Appeal reported.
There’s a statue over the grave, in a park that at one point was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest.
To be fair, Forrest’s remains used to be in a local cemetery and they were moved to the park to go with the statue. So this isn’t a complete case of ghoulishness by the city council in Memphis – Forrest’s remains might just be going back to the cemetery he was originally buried in. Even still, this episode is definitely the creepiest example yet of the anti-history Democrat Party’s attempts to scrub all vestiges of the Confederacy from the South.
Except if you made this into a horror movie, you wouldn’t have to deal with the studio’s publicists having a heart attack over all the racial stuff. Memphis’ city council has seven black members and six white ones, and though the council’s membership is supposed to be nonpartisan there are actually three Republicans on it.
As we know, when the Klan first got started they’d string up a Republican just as quickly as a black person. So the murderous, pissed-off ghost of Nathan Bedford Forrest in our movie really could get some equal-opportunity revenge.
Sure, it’s a stupid premise from a movie. But since it’s actually happening in real life you can’t say it’s unrealistic.
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