A park in Memphis, Tennessee named for Confederate “hero” General Nathan Bedford Forrest and featuring an equestrian statue of him at its center are generating controversy. The general and his wife, furthermore, are buried in the park. Forrest engaged in slave trade before the Civil War and after it in 1867 became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Is it imaginable that people wouldn’t want this statue taken down as if it were one of Saddam Hussein? Who are the southerners who support its staying in place; insurgents who would take up the Confederate cause anew if only they could?

Sons of Confederate Veterans, for example, mobilizes each time there is a call for the park to be renamed and the statue and bodies to be removed. Kevin Bradley, Forrest’s great-great grandson, wants to keep his ancestor’s name and bones in place. He says: “I hope we can just move on and get this behind us.” He might have noted that even at this late date after the abolition of slavery, it isn’t so easy for many persons of African-American heritage to just put behind them the effects of racism. The mayor of Southaven, Mississippi, a city where many white Memphians have moved, is on record as saying he would be “happy” to have the Forrest equestrian statue in Southaven.

Racists, and these days, Republicans are entirely without shame. Present-day Germany doesn’t allow monuments to Hitler and present-day America shouldn’t allow monuments to slave-traders and KKK wizards. If Bush won’t take a stand on the side of having this park renamed and this statue removed, then he is more with the bigots than against them. What a disgrace that tax dollars are maintaining this park.