The Duval County School Board in Florida voted five to two to retain the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest as the name of a local high school along racial lines. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate General and perhaps a founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

Nathan Bedford Forrest High School is majority African American. The name was given to the High School during the 1950s when the school was majority white upon the suggestion of the Daughters of the Confederacy as a protest against a Supreme Court decision mandating the desegregation of public schools.

The Nathan Bedford Forrest High School controversy illuminates how southerners still regard the history of the Civil War. To many white southerners, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a military hero who fought against the Union Army. To African Americans, as a black member of the Duval County School Board suggested, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a terrorist and a racist. Both views have a degree of truth to them

Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the greatest cavalry commanders in the Civil War Forrest lead units of fast moving mounted troops that often performed out of proportion to their numbers. Nathan Bedford Forrest fought in major engagements such as Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Brice's Crossroad as well as uncounted smaller engagements.

There are two serious controversies surrounding Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was accused of conducting a massacre of African American troops who had surrendered at Fort Pillow. Conflicting accounts of the massacre, though, caused a Congressional investigation to clear Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Nathan Bedford Forrest is also accused of being a founder of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. Forrest denied this, even though the KKK named him as its first Grand Wizard. In any event, it is not disputed that Nathan Bedford Forrest turned against the Klan, urging that it disband after the KKK engaged in violence.