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In Memphis, a City on the Move, a Civil War Issue Refuses to Die

A clamor always seems to accompany any mention in Memphis, the city where ML KIng Jr. was shot and killed, of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the cavalryman whose outnumbered men whipped the Yankees at Brice's Crossroads in northern Mississippi.

He was not just any Confederate hero. After the war, he returned to Memphis and, in 1867, became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Today, Memphis is a city on the move. It has a new downtown basketball arena and minor-league baseball stadium, will soon have a new biomedical research complex, and is trying to lure the headquarters of International Paper. But many people here believe that Forrest's name and even his grave are in the way of progress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/national/05memphis.html?hp