Forrest Hall
Renaming Forrest Hall: An Update
Story by Matthew Giffin | News Editor Four years after the Tennessee Historical Commission denied Middle Tennessee State University’s request to change the name of a building dedicated to the Confederate leader of the Ku Klux Klan in 1958, President Sidney McPhee remains committed to seeing Forrest Hall have another name. “I continue to believe …
Board Backs McPhee in Renaming Forrest Hall
On Tuesday, the Middle Tennessee State University Board of Trustees voted unanimously to “support efforts to gain permission from the state” to remove Nathan Forrest’s name from MTSU’s ROTC building, according to the Murfreesboro Voice. As President Sidney McPhee has expressed in earlier statements concerning Forrest Hall, the name is a painful reminder of the past. …
MTSU Community Supports Sidelines Request for Renaming of Forrest Hall
Photo via Pexels For decades, Sidelines, students and the faculty of Middle Tennessee State University have fought for equality and equity for African American students. In 1968, Sidelines published a guest column from Sylvester Brooks, a Black student from Memphis, Tennessee, titled ”Dixie: What Does It Mean?” In this column, Brooks discussed the usage of …
Persecution and progress: A look at Rutherford County’s troubled past of hate crimes, racism
Story by Madeline Quinby / Studio M History shows Murfreesboro and Rutherford County, Tennessee, are not strangers to hate crime. From when the Ku Klux Klan first came to Murfreesboro in 1868 to a planned White Lives Matter rally on the public square in 2017, themes of hate and prejudice plague the past. These biased …
Tennessee Historical Commission denies MTSU’s petition to rename Forrest Hall
Photo by Sarah Grace Taylor / MTSU Sidelines Archive After a rigorous hearing in the William R. Snodgrass Building in Nashville on Friday, the Tennessee Historical Commission voted to deny MTSU’s request to rename Forrest Hall. The petition, originally submitted 17 months ago, would have been the last step in a nearly three-year process to …
Forrest Hall: McPhee requests name change from Tennessee Historical Commission
Photo by Sarah Grace Taylor / Editor-in-Chief MTSU President Sidney McPhee requested that the Tennessee Historical Commission change the name of Forrest Hall late Tuesday afternoon. The Commission will have to approve the name change by a two-thirds majority vote following changes made to the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act earlier this year. In his letter …