Billboard honoring KKK founder on display near Selma bridge on anniversary of historic march

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This weekend, the president himself will be in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate 50 years since the historic march and Bloody Sunday. But just within sight of the historic site is a billboard commemorating KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The billboard, which stands at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after a former KKK Grand Wizard, invites visitors to visit “Selma’s War Between The States Historic Sites.” The billboard features the image of Forrest on a background of a Confederate flag. Beneath Forrest’s picture is his famous saying, “Keep the skeer on ’em.”

The group Friends Of Forrest, run by “wizardess” Patricia Goodwin, erected the billboard. In response to a huge social media outcry, Goodwin said, “That billboard was put there with positive intent to ask people who come to Selma to explore and enjoy our 19th century history.”

“Does it say anything in the Constitution where a certain faction of people cannot be offended?” she added. “I’m offended by all these people walking around with their pants hanging around their knees.”

But not everyone agrees with Goodwin.

“It should be taken down,” said Flossie Menifee, 67, who grew up in Selma. “The Ku Klux Klan, the hatred, the prejudice, I think it’s always going to be in Selma.”

“It feels threatening because we think of Forrest as the founder of the KKK and that reminds us of the violence,” said Kirsten Muller, 59, co-founder of international human rights organization Global Exchange. She was visiting Selma from San Francisco and said the sight of the billboard “shocked” her.

The president is set to speak this weekend on that very bridge. Ironically, the billboard has a sign welcoming him to Selma on the back.