Protesters want MTSU Forrest Hall name change now

MURFREESBORO — Demonstrators calling for a new name for Middle Tennessee State University's Forrest Hall on Monday afternoon criticized the institution's timeline to decide whether the name should remain.

While MTSU President Sidney McPhee defended the task force he charged with considering whether to change the name of the hall dedicated for controversial Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, some of the more than two dozen protesters said the task force's April deadline for a recommendation is too far away and designed to delay the decision until students lose interest.

"This is our last nice demand for this before this could escalate," graduate student Joshua Crutchfield said at the beginning of the on-campus demonstration.

Protesters marched from the Student Union Building to Forrest Hall, the campus ROTC building, with an effigy of the Confederate general in a gray uniform and a coffin he was eventually placed in. The coffin was left at the feet of Forrest Hall once the event ended.

After the demonstration, Crutchfield said the group, "Change the Name of Forrest Hall," had not developed specific plans if the name remained on the building for several months.

"Hopefully this will be the last time we have to do this so they can take this more seriously," Crutchfield said. "We've debated this issue many times in the past."

McPhee, who observed the beginning of the demonstration near the Student Union Commons, told reporters later in the afternoon that the process would provide all sides of the debate a chance to speak before a decision is made.

"If we speed it up just because the students are demanding it, that's not fair to the process," McPhee said.

The university's task force, made up of students, faculty and community leaders, met for the first time in October with the eventual charge to recommend to McPhee whether the Forrest Hall name should remain, be retained with "added historical" context or be eliminated entirely.

If a recommendation to change the name is made, additional action would have to be taken by the Tennessee Board of Regents and possibly other state agencies to force the name off the building.

The name of the ROTC building has drawn off-and-on controversy at the university in the decades since its dedication in 1958. While critics denounced Forrest for his troops' role in the Fort Pillow massacre and his election as an early grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, supporters say the Confederate general was an innovative tactician who denounced the KKK before his death.

Forrest was known locally for leading troops who saved Confederate troops from Union captivity at the Rutherford County Courthouse during the Civil War.

A bronze medallion of Forrest was removed from Keathley University Center in 1989, university officials said. Students petitioned to have the Forrest Hall name changed in 2006 and 2007, but the name remained as student groups indicated a change wasn't a priority for them.

"This is not a simple issue. There are others who feel just as strongly as the students on the other side," McPhee said. "With the principle of the university, where we should be open to different views and different situations regardless of how we feel about it, or how repugnant it is, it's part of our duty to let the other voices here in a deliberative, orderly process."

Demonstrators, however, said they would actively oppose the name of Forrest Hall until a change is made.

"As long as the name is on that building, we will be here to give those that defend it hell," said Dakota Dexter, an MTSU alumnus.

Reach Brian Wilson at 615-278-5165. Follow him on Twitter @brianwilson17.