‘I thought it was very nice’: VA official showcased portrait of KKK’s first grand wizard

By Lisa Rein, The Washington Post

David J. Thomas Sr., deputy executive director of VA’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, said he removed this painting from his office after learning that its subject, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was a Confederate general and slave trader who was later the Ku Klux Klan’s first figurehead. (Courtesy of John Rigby)

A senior official at the Department of Veterans Affairs said he removed a portrait of the Ku Klux Klan’s first grand wizard from his Washington, D.C., office after offended employees began signing a petition to present to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.

David J. Thomas Sr. is deputy executive director of VA’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, which certifies veteran-owned businesses seeking government contracts. His senior staff is mostly African American.

Thomas said he took down the painting Monday after a Washington Post reporter explained that its subject, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was a Confederate general and slave trader who became the KKK’s first figure­head in 1868. He said he was unaware of Forrest’s affiliation with the hate group, which formed after the Civil War to maintain white control over newly freed blacks through violence and intimidation.

A basic Google search of Forrest’s name returns various biographies detailing his role in the Confederacy and the white-supremacist strains of its aftermath.

“It was just a beautiful print that I had purchased, and I thought it was very nice,” Thomas said. He said he knew of Forrest only “as a Southern general in the Civil War” and kept the portrait in his basement before decorating a new and larger office at VA’s administrative headquarters a few months ago…

A manager who reports to Thomas disputed part of his account, saying the Forrest portrait was displayed in Thomas’s previous office also, starting in 2015. When he moved offices in recent months, Thomas directed VA’s maintenance staff to install an electrical outlet high on the wall so he could illuminate the portrait, said the manager, Michelle Gardner-Ince.

Thomas’s staff includes 14 managers, nine of whom are black.

Racial tensions have flared between Thomas and several of his employees, at least three of whom have pending claims of racial discrimination against him. An attorney representing two of these employees said the portrait is evidence that Thomas is not comfortable around African Americans…

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