After last year’s Rome City Commission vote the statue of Confederate general war hero William Bedford Forrest was finally removed from Myrle Hill Cemetery Friday.
The statue has been moved to storage and will soon find its new home at the former location of Fort Norton on Jackson Hill.
According to Rome City Commissioner Wendy Davis, “Currently the statue is being housed in an unknown location for safe keeping until we can relocate it to its new home”.
Along with being credited for saving Rome during the Civil War, Bedford’s national legacy stems from his being the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.
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The City Commissioners voted on Monday to move the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue that is located at Myrtle Hill to a new location on History Jackson Jill at Fort Norton.
City Commissioners said that the move is being done to preserve and protect the statue from possible vandalism and destruction.
Commissioners will now conduct a study to see if the statue can be property moved without any type of destruction to the monument.
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A recommendation from the Rome Community Development Services Committee to move the statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest from Myrtle Hill Cemetery to Fort Norton Park on top of Jackson Hill was approved this week.
The next step is to have the city petition the state for approval to move the monument.
The recommendation states that the statue should be located as quickly and expeditiously as possible.
The committee , which includes commissions Randy Quick, Mark Cochran and Sundai Stevenson.
The motion is expected to go on Monday’s agenda at the Rome City Commission Meeting.
A proposed interpretation advisory committee would write a full history on Forrest that would be placed near the statute. The six-member committee would feature three pro-Forrest and three anti-Forrest city residents. It would be chaired for a neutral person selected by the other six members. The group would be provided a $5,000 budget to hire academic historians to make sure all accounts are factual and accurate.
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to The Rome Community Development Committee will hold a special called meeting this Friday to discuss the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue at the base of Myrtle Hill.
The meeting comes after a petition was given on Monday to City Commissioners. Thus far over 3,000 people have signed the petition to remove the statue.
However, since the petition was started a second petition, this one to protect the monument, was started and has since surpassed the number of signatures than its counterpart. The petition to save the monument reached nearly 4,000 signatures as of Thursday.
Forrest, known for his role in the beginning of KKK, is also known for saving Rome during the Civil War. Forrest played a major part in driving away union raiders in 1863. The statue originally stood in the middle of Broad Street but was moved to its current location in 1952.
