His speech to the Pole-Bearers was five years after the 15th Amendment was ratified and nine years after the Civil Rights Act. What he was doing was recognizing what had already happened and trying to turn it to political advantage. He was looking for votes for Democrats, not civil rights for blacks. As Andy's told us, there was a specific situation in Memphis in 1875, and Forrest was looking to control that situation. There was no miraculous conversion. It was just a realist counting votes and looking to master a particular situation. Blacks were asserting their rights already at the time, and were willing to confront those who opposed them, violently if necessary. Forrest wanted to gain control of that.
See Andy's post here:
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/nathan-bedford-forrests-changing-beliefs.125777/#post-1359017
I know it's almost sacrilege to say this to the Forrest cult, but there's no evidence the man ever changed his mind. He wanted to control blacks. He didn't want them off doing their own thing. He couldn't do anything about giving them their civil rights because they already had them by law. He was looking to control their votes, and using the result of that vote to control them. He knew electing Democrats meant curtailing rights for blacks, and he was out to elect Democrats.
You can see the reporting on the event here:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045160/1875-07-06/ed-1/seq-1.pdf
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045160/1875-07-06/ed-1/seq-4.pdf
Forrest claims that almost all confederate soldiers were friends of black folks. They had a funny way of showing it. They were such friends they perpetrated terrorism to intimidate and murder blacks. The perpetrated atrocities on black soldiers who surrendered during the Civil War.
Gideon Pillow also spoke at the meeting, urging blacks to disband all their political organizations because southern whites were their true friends. Uh-huh.
Forrest and Pillow were among the prominent white men the Pole Bearers invited to the picnic for peace and reconciliation.
All historical events have a context, and this is no exception.
The following month, Forrest wrote to Edmund W. Rucker, "our Election paste [sic] off quiet and for the Democratic party. The Civil Rights Bil [sic] has Setled [sic] the Republican party." In that same letter, he wrote, "the white people" need "only do as we have dun [sic] all work to gether [sic]." [quoted in Brian Steel Wills,
A Battle From the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, p. 369]
Forrest had good reason to want blacks to believe he wanted reconciliation. "Living in a city whose only barbers were blacks, he had made it a postbellum practice never to patronize the same one twice in succession, lest a plot be hatched to slit his throat." [Jack Hurst,
Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography, p. 366]
The 15th Amendment had been ratified five years earlier, and a presidential election was coming up in the following year. Forrest was a staunch Democrat and surely wanted as many votes for Democrats as possible.
This speech is less a demonstration of Forrest as a civil rights advocate and much, much more a demonstration of Forrest as a canny pol, looking to get black folks on board for the election of candidates who would work against their interests.