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The Mississippi division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had its first specialty license plate approved in 2002. The plate has remained the same for eight years, until this year when the group proposed five new designs to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

One of those designs features Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a heralded cavalry leader who also is known for commanding a massacre of black Union Army soldiers at the Battle of Fort Pillow and for being a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan.

It is the latter distinction that has some in the state calling for the plate to be denied issuance.

The NAACP is planning to send a letter to Gov. Haley Barbour asking that he publicly denounce the license plate and use his office to prevent it from being issued.

But supporters of the plate believe Forrest should not be dismissed because of that one time in history.

"It's been said he disavowed the Klan later in life and that puts him in the same category as former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and former West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd," said Greg Stewart, a Sons of Confederate Veterans member.

Both Black and Byrd had early ties to the KKK but managed to not have their careers overshadowed by them.

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Eh...they probably ought to throw out that design.  I'm a descendant from a Confederate Veteran (though I don't belong to that group), and I wouldn't want that tag on my truck.

Maybe a nice red and gray 'Dixie' tag.  Or crossed swords or bugles (like heraldry) or something less offensive.  Or maybe just a 'Sons of Confederate Veterans' emblem on the tag?

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I finally saw a picture of the plate yesterday in the local news.


Thats pretty much it.  No KKK insignia.  No men in hoods or burning crosses.

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i don't think the controversy was about the sons of confederate veterans so much as it was about nathen bedford forrest.

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I dont even see his name or likeness on that tag though.  

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i don't either to tell the truth. u sure those aren't old tags?

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One says 2011.  I cant tell the date on the other one, but it was being presented as the 'new tag'.  So I dunno...

Much ado about nothing imo.

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re-reading the article, it says there were 5 designs proposed, and one of them was dedicated to bedford.