Ford is mentioned in the first paragraph.
Link:
http://chattanoogan.com/articles/article_77970.aspSnip: <Rev. William Swann claims that I have maligned Nathan Bedford Forrest, and, by inference, that Harold Ford is racist for objecting to Forrest's statue standing in the Tennessee State House. I stand by my assertions that Harold Ford, Jr. is not a racist, and that Forrest was a slave trader, a war criminal, and a founder, and first “Grand Dragon,” of the KKK.
I will not belabor the reader with reams of argument, as Rev. Swann has done, but I will enumerate some of the more telling evidence and provide some steps the reader may take to confirm my contentions.
First, all should note that Swann does not dispute the fact that Forrest was a professional slave trader. That alone is enough to make him odious in the eyes of African, and many white, Americans. Slave traders were pariahs in their own region during the antebellum era. They were hated by the slaves they bought and sold, and looked down on as socially inferior by the white planter aristocrats who patronized them. Should the state of Tennessee honor those who engaged in this vile and inhuman practice?
I do not know what the good reverend is referring to in his defense of Forrest, but the official government investigation of Fort Pillow found that: “the Confederates were guilty of atrocities which included murdering most of the garrison after it surrendered, burying Negro soldiers alive, and setting fire to tents containing Federal wounded (38th Congress, Report #65).”>
More at the link....