MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- Students disrupted a Murfreesboro meeting held Wednesday night to consider changing the name of a building on the Middle Tennessee State campus named for a controversial Confederate general.
Forrest Hall at MTSU is named for General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave holder and early member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Forrest Hall has been the subject of controversy for decades. Following the murders of nine members of a historically black church in South Carolina last summer, students again began to call for the name to be changed.
Wednesday night’s meeting at the Lane Agri-Park in Murfreesboro was the second of two public comment sessions held by the 17 member panel chosen last year by MTSU President Sidney McPhee to consider the name change.
The Daily News Journal reports students disrupted the meeting by shouting slogans and holding up protest signs as they walked out of the meeting. They continued their protest outside.
President McPhee has asked the committee to make a recommendation about the name change by April.