Tennessee's Republican governor wants to amend a law that requires the state to honor a Confederate general who also was a slave trader and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Gov. Bill Lee has previously expressed displeasure over the law.
that he didn’t like signing the proclamation and would prefer to see the law changed.
As of Saturday, Tennessee’s secretary of state’s website did not show that Lee had signed the Robert E. Lee Day proclamation. His office also did not respond to questions if the governor wanted to change that day celebrating the Confederate general, which falls the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Forrest, a Confederate cavalry general, amassed a fortune as a plantation owner and slave trader in Memphis before the Civil War. “I know that it’s hard to renegotiate history, but at the end of the day we need to celebrate folks that bring people together and not necessarily tear people apart. I hope that we will consider that and reexamine all of these proclamations for state holidays,” said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat from Memphis.
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