[MUSIC PLAYING]
DJ: Good morning.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
You know it's 10 o'clock, and you know what time it is.
It's time for you to come on into my office, stretch out on
the couch, and let's talk about it.
Today we have a great one for you.
The topic is the renaming of the parks.
City Council decided that the parks were named after some
people that they feel that has done some African Americans
bad in this community.
Then there are some saying, man, that was history.
It had nothing to do with that.
But last time we had somebody protest called the KKK.
It didn't go too good.
And coming this Saturday they're going to be in Memphis
protesting the fact that, hey, you leave the name of them
parks alone.
We know what it represents to us, and we feel
it should not change.
And there are some rumors that the gangs here in Memphis are
going to say, we're going to keep the Klan at hand.
Well, whichever way it goes, I'd like to know how do you
feel about it?
CALLER: [INAUDIBLE], how many minutes I got to be talking
before we hang up?
DJ: You got your 90 seconds.
CALLER: But now [INAUDIBLE], while my phone's out, you see
I got 14 minutes.
[INAUDIBLE], I got 14 minutes.
DJ: But you ain't got 14 minutes, don't you?
Come on, Bumble Bee.
Get your--
get in and get out.
CALLER: I've got to the point, I'm sorry to say, but want to
say, I don't care nothing about their power.
Keep their power right there.
DJ: That's how you feel?
CALLER: Yeah.
DJ: All right, Bumble Bee, I'm going to keep it rolling.
CALLER: [GROANS].
DJ: You got your second.
Appreciate you, man.
Gentleman, let's not even put any hesitation to this.
The founder of the Ku Klux Klan was
Nathan Bedford Forrest.
And they've named a park after--
I think that's the biggest issue with some Memphians.
LEE MILLAR: Well, that's part of the education that needs to
occur, because General Forrest was not the founder
of the Ku Klux Klan.
It had existed for over a year before he allegedly ever got
involved in it, so Forrest was not the founder of the Klan.
And in fact the Klan of the 1860s is very different from
the Klan of today.
It's upsetting that people would attack history and try
to erase history like this.
It takes education to learn about somebody from 150 years
in our past.
And the more people know, that they get educated about our
past, the better off they are and.
When the Ku Klux was formed, they created it as a social
club to start with.
Tennessee at that time was ruled by just a tyrannical
carpet bag governor, and he had tripled the taxes.
And so these ex-Confederates thought that they had better
do something about that.
So they dressed up in sheets and curtains one night and ran
him out of town.
And they restored law and order to Pulaski, Tennessee.
Well, this caught on, and the next town did the same thing.
They were also protecting the white and black farmers who
were losing their land.
So it wasn't an anti-black thing whatsoever in the 1860s.
After it had gone on for over a year, the Klan had spread so
widely that they needed someone who could really
organize the Klan.
And they voted in general Forrest as
president of the Klan.
At that same point, the Klan started turning violent.
Some of the guys were taking the law of their own hands.
And so Bedford Forrest ordered that the Klan be disbanded.
And it was.
So in 1869 the Ku Klux Klan disappeared.
ROCCO CASTORO: And this was the initial--
LEE MILLAR: This was the first--
right, the first Klan.
Then around the time of World War I, jobs were scarce.
You had the Great Depression, and the white guys figured out
that if you scared the black guys out of town,
there'd be more jobs.
Generally speaking, blacks are more scared of ghosts than
other people.
So it became an economic tool for the Klan
to resurrect itself.
ROCCO CASTORO: Isn't the word "scare" a bit--
LEE MILLAR: Well, scare might be a little bit light.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah, a little light, I would think.
LEE MILLAR: Yes, yes.
There may have been some lynchings then.
But yeah, that's where it first had gotten into little
terrorist activities.
Then the Klan disappeared in about 1933 and was gone until
the 1950s and '60s.
Then when segregation came about, then
the third Klan arose.
And they were specifically to fight black civil rights and
to oppose federal intervention.
And they really developed the scare tactics just to
terrorize the black residents.
And that's, unfortunately, the Klan that we have today is
more of the terrorist group.
ROCCO CASTORO: Do you think the City Council is engaging
in revisionist history?
LEE MILLAR: Oh, yes, I certainly do.
They're trying to eliminate these three Civil War parks,
which is part of American history,
Memphis history, certainly.
And so it's certainly upon the shoulders of the City Council
that the Klan is coming to Memphis for a rally.
And it's unfortunate, because it's going to give Memphis a
further black eye.
ROCCO CASTORO: It was the Memphis City Council who
spearheaded the decision to change the
name of Forrest Park.
Two Council members in particular, Janis Fullilove
and Myron Lowery, were extremely vocal about the
reasons for the renaming.
JANIS FULLILOVE: Why do we have to put up with what we
have seen for decades and decades that's just a reminder
of how evil some people had been towards my people and
other people.
I marched with Dr. King back in 1968, got shot at by a
Memphis police officer, and the only thing that saved me--
I had a hair piece on my head, and a big old hole was in it.
And we don't need that.
We are a progressive city.
We're moving forward.
ROCCO CASTORO: The decision to change these parks' names, is
there any responsibility to bear on the Council?
JANIS FULLILOVE: I take the blame.
Even though I've got death threats, they're going to hang
me, Nigger we're going get you.
Fine.
ROCCO CASTORO: Is that what the Klan--
they're calling you--
JANIS FULLILOVE: I don't know if it was the Klan--
ROCCO CASTORO: Somebody?
JANIS FULLILOVE: Somebody, yeah, they were going to ki--
I was going to be hung.
I was, OK, so what?
Hang me.
But I'm still going to stand for that, which is right, even
if I had to stand by myself.
But fortunately, there were 12 others that stood with me.
MYRON LOWERY: I've referred to the Klan as a terrorist
organization.
In fact, I call them the American Taliban.
Change produces controversy, and that's what we
have in this case.
People, many people, don't want to change.
They want to live in the past with the
memories that they have.
Well, no one is trying to change history.
We're only trying to add onto history.
DR. E. C. FIELDS, JR: Mr. Castoro, US Grant.
ROCCO CASTORO: Nice to meet you, General Grant.
DR. E. C. FIELDS, JR: Won't you come in?
ROCCO CASTORO: Yes, hello.
DR. E. C. FIELDS, JR: This is my wife Julia.
Julia, this is Mr. Rocco Castoro.
JULIA GRANT: Good morning, sir.
ROCCO CASTORO: Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Grant.
JULIA GRANT: Welcome to our home.
ROCCO CASTORO: Thank you for having me.
DR. E. C. FIELDS, JR: Julia graciously
agreed to join us briefly.
ROCCO CASTORO: That's wonderful.
Memphis is a weird, but magical place.
And is apparently home to a wormhole that allowed me to
travel back in time to meet Union general and former
president Ulysses S. Grant, a.k.a.
Dr. E. C. Fields, to get his opinion on the controversy.
DR. E. C. FIELDS, JR: Councilwoman Fullilove does
not know her history, and that's someone who has the
position don't confuse me with the truth, I've got
my mind made up.
General Forrest, he was supportive
of negro black rights.
In fact, in 1875 he came out and said strongly that he felt
that blacks should be admitted to the bar to practice law.
He had earlier said that blacks should be able to go as
far as their capabilities could take them.
I never met General Forrest personally.
I know something of his history that I may be
able to tell you.
General Forrest was a military genius.
He was the only man in the Civil War, and indeed the only
man in history, who rose from a private soldier to
Lieutenant General in the same war.
His movements, his tactics, his efforts are still studied
at the United States Military Academy.
So General Forrest, to me, is exemplary of someone who was
one of the most effective combat
leaders in military history.
That's Chief.
He's chief duck, so we call him Chief.
JULIA GRANT: He's the male alpha.
He's the alpha.
ROCCO CASTORO: What will you be doing on Saturday when the
rally is happening?
DR. E. C. FIELDS, JR: I will be here in the 21st century.
I will be here on my deck, looking at my
ducks on the lake.
I will place myself as far away as I possibly can from
what's going on downtown.
And I urge everyone to stay away from that.
Don't give anybody, be it the Klan or
the Crips, in audience.