By Al Benson Jr.
The city council in Selma, Alabama had their meeting on Tuesday evening, September 25th and voted 4-0 to suspend work on the Forrest Monument. There were 2 abstentions. Is anyone really surprised? After years of watching this sort of thing you begin to get a feel for it and you can almost predict how politically correct politicians will vote on a given issue. And thanks to the rantings of black extremists this is a politically charged issue.
I have been checking with some folks in that area and found out that Confederate Circle, where the monument is belongs to Selma Chapter 53 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy by virtue of the fact that on April 17, 1877, the Selma City Council donated the land to the Ladies Memorial Association, of which Chapter 53 of the UDC is an outgrowth. The city of Selma bought the land from the Sallie Jones estate in 1877…the deed did not get recorded until 1896…Selma Chapter 53 of the UDC was chartered on April 26, 1896. The folks involved with this do not know why the deed was not recorded until 1896 for the city of Selma but think it was an oversight, not found until 20 years afterward. Unless they find the recording of the deed they assume its not being recorded was merely an oversight.
At this point, Confederate Circle where the monument is has been surveyed by a local surveyor. Interestingly enough, in the process of all this, it has been discovered that each of the city schools in Selma do not have a deed to the property they are on, which they thought they owned. The city of Selma is currently preparing deeds for them to correct that slight oversight.
A lawyer has been hired by those wanting to keep the Forrest Monument and this will all eventually go to court.
Rose Sanders, mother of Malika Sanders-Fortier made a statement at the City Council meeting that “people could get hurt” unless the City Council voted to suspend the legally obtained building permit for the monument and the court now has to rule on the ownership of Confederate Circle which was deeded to the predecessor of the UDC by the Selma City Council way back in 1877. It almost sounds like the deed to your property doesn’t mean all that much if someone doesn’t like what you might use that property for. You also have to ask just what Rose Sanders meant when she said “people could get hurt” unless the monument was stopped. Was that a threat?
Rose Sanders, chief hater of the Nathan Bedford Forrest Monument travels in some “interesting” circles which I don’t expect the media to point out to anyone. However, a little digging on the Internet will turn up some interesting stuff for those who care to do the homework.
Lee Stranahan, commenting on http://leestranahan.com on October 13, 2011 made note of a press conference having to do with the Pigford Farm settlement. I won’t go into all the details of that, but some of the people at the news conference were of interest. Mr. Stranahan stated: “The press conference was held by a ragtag group of self-styled black leaders. The most notorious presence was Malik Zulu Shabazz, the leader of the New Black Panther Party. Also in attendance was Ridgley Muhammed, the Minister of Agriculture for Nation of Islam…The star of the show, however, was Selma, Alabama based semi-retired lawyer Rose Sanders. Mrs. Sanders arrived late—to applause from the audience and the panel—but her presence was significant not only for what she said but who she is….She’s fiercely and famously outspoken against her perceived enemies, including the Tea Party.”
Mr. Stranahan continued: “Mrs. Sanders sitting down with leaders from the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party isn’t an accident due to improper vetting. She has a history with both the NOI and its crazier, violence preaching offshoot. This past year, Sanders was sitting in the front row for a speech by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. In the late 1990s when the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center named the Nation of Islam as a ‘hate group’ Sanders sprang to the defense of the Nation with an editorial implying that the SPLC were white Jewish racists.” The extreme left wingers arguing among themselves—now that would have been worth the price of admission. That’s usually something you don’t see. They may hate each other’s guts but before the world they will put on a front of solidarity. For Mrs. Sanders to break that leftist tradition she must really be a vehement white-hater.
Stranahan also observed that: “When Andrew Breitbart published photos earlier this week showing the New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz speaking at the same podium with Barak Obama during an event commemorating Selma’s ‘Bloody Sunday’, Rose Sanders is clearly visible on the podium only a couple feet away next to both Obama and Shabazz. Sanders is no stranger to the Nation of Islam or the New Black Panther Party, nor does she seem to be above their anti-Semitic or anti-white rhetoric. She’s also prone to make wild, scattershot accusations of racism…”
Mr. Stranahan’s article was picked up by someone who apparently knows Rose Sanders and was posted also on http://www.angelfire.com with the following commentary, in part, and dated 4/9/12. “…What we find difficult to comprehend is her almost insane hatred of someone who has been dead for 135 years—Nathan Bedford Forrest. Even more incomprehensible is her hatred toward a piece of marble in a city cemetery. If someone who has been dead for more than a century or a slab of marble could hurt Rose, we might understand her obsessive compulsive hatred of them…Because Rose is always with us, we might not have an objective view of her considering her misplaced priorities in cursing, hating and disliking a dead person and a slab of marble;…” It sounds like it was written by someone who knows or at least is familiar with Mrs. Sanders.
This will give you some idea of where the people who are opposed to reconstruction of the Bedford Forrest Monument are coming from. They accuse white Southerners of being racists and hate-mongers, yet they are the most ethnocentric people around. For them everything revolves around race and perceived victim hood.
If you can still find it, I would recommend getting a copy of a book by Alan Stang called It’s Very Simple–The true story of Civil Rights. This will explain to you what the whole game is really all about.
revisedhistory 