Episode 73 (Notes on an Imagined Plaque to be Added to the Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Upon Hearing that the Memphis City Counci has Voted to Move it and the Exhumed Remains of General Forrest and his Wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, fr

In 'the memory palace' podcast, Episode 73, host Nate DiMeo reflects on the history and legacy of the statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee. The episode opens with contemplation of a hypothetical plaque that would accompany the statue of Forrest, should it be moved from its downtown park location to Elmwood Cemetery, as voted by the Memphis City Council. DiMeo suggests this plaque should be conspicuous and disruptive to the statue's grandeur, to ensure it catches the attention of future onlookers. He emphasizes the importance of memorials in shaping how future generations remember the past, and the plaque's material should reflect the era of its installation.

The narrative then delves into the statue's history, erected in 1905, forty years after the Civil War and thirty years after Forrest's death. DiMeo describes the Memphis of the early 1900s, a city grappling with the economic loss post-slavery and the devastation of yellow fever. The erection of Forrest's statue was a deliberate act by wealthy white Memphians to commemorate a past that aligned with their values of heritage and chivalry, conveniently omitting Forrest's involvement in slavery and as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The episode reveals the statue's unveiling was a celebration of a sanitized version of Forrest, ignoring his role in the massacre at Fort Pillow and the terror inflicted by the Klan.

DiMeo recounts how the statue stood in Memphis for 110 years, a symbol of the values of those who erected it rather than a true reflection of history. He argues that memorials have motives and represent the intentions of their creators, not the unvarnished truth of history. The episode concludes with a reflection on the events that led to the decision to move the statue in 2015, following the tragic church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. The Memphis community's desire to remove symbols of a painful past and bury the legacy of Nathan Bedford Forrest represents a significant shift in the collective memory and the values that public memorials are meant to uphold.