By Daily Mail Reporter PUBLISHED: 20:27 EST, 22 August 2012 | UPDATED: 21:09 EST, 22 August 2012 Community leaders in Selma, Alabama, are furious over the repair and renovation of a monument to a Confederate general who was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Kulx Klan. Opponents say Nathan Bedford Forrest was a brutal racist who was a slave trader before the Civil War. During the war, his troops slaughtered 200 black soldiers after they surrendered during the Battle of Fort Pillow. The group Friends of Forrest says the general was a self-made man and a brilliant tactician who defended Selma during the Union invasion in 1865.
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Nathan Bedford Forrest was a slave trader who tried to bring blacks back under white control after the Civil War
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Monument in Selma, Alabama, was vandalized and his bust stolen in April
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Friends of Forrest group is spending $50,000 to replace to head and restore the memorial
Stolen: In April, someone swiped the bust of @placeholder.