Incoming Gov. Bill Lee has said it's "a mistake to whitewash history."

Lawmaker who filed bill to removed bust last year says she won't try again this session.

The bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest displayed in Tennessee's Capitol rotunda will likely remain in place, at least for the foreseeable future.

The tribute to the Confederate general and first leader of the Ku Klux Klan has been on display in the Capitol since 1978, though calls for its removal have been renewed in recent years amid a national debate about Confederate monuments and flags.

Among the dissenters has been outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam, who throughout his tenure has maintained that he is favor of the bust being moved elsewhere.

But Gov.-elect Bill Lee has said he is opposed to the removal of the Forrest bust, explaining as a candidate that he believes it would be "a mistake to whitewash history."

"I've said often times I think the removal of monuments is not the best approach to resolving the challenges that are presented with that conversation," Lee said earlier this month in an interview on Grand Divisions, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee's politics podcast. "Wiping out history wipes out, also, the history that we're not proud of."

With efforts to remove the bust failing in recent years despite Haslam's backing, Lee's opposition to its removal means the monument is likely to remain in its current position for now.

Lee defended his stance on leaving the bust in place by explaining that Tennesseans shouldn't forget about the state's ugly history.

"The Ku Klux Klan is a part of our history that we’re not proud of in Tennessee, and we need to be reminded of that and make certain that we don’t forget it," Lee said. "So I wouldn't advocate to remove that."

His remarks come in contrast to Haslam's position on which historical leaders should be immortalized at the legislature.

"If we are going to honor a limited number of Tennesseans in the Capitol, Forrest should not be on that list," Haslam said last year after a vote by the state Capitol Commission against seeking a waiver from the Tennessee Historical Commission to remove the bust.

Forrest, who was a slave trader before the Civil War, also led troops in the Fort Pillow massacre in West Tennessee. There, the Confederate army killed hundreds of surrendered Union soldiers, most of whom were black, in what became known as one of the most infamous events of the Civil War.

"I don’t think it’s a state where we can say, 'Well we dealt with that, and we are going on,'" Haslam said

In 2010, the state moved the Forrest bust from outside the doors of the House of Representatives' chamber to its current location between the legislature's two chambers. It was relocated in order to make room for a bust of Sampson Keeble, Tennessee's first black legislator.

Lawmaker not planning to reintroduce bill to move Forrest bust

While state Sen. Brenda Gilmore — at the time still in the House of Representatives — filed a bill last December to move the Forrest bust to the State Museum, she said she has no immediate plans to introduce similar legislation this session.

Gilmore, D-Nashville, said she ended up not pushing the legislation. Days after she introduced the bill, Memphis skirted a state prohibition on removing statues of Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis by selling park land to a nonprofit, which removed the monuments.

Some Republicans in the legislature were furious.

"It's going to take a little while to unfreeze some feelings about it and get people to see it in a different light," Gilmore said.

"I think we just have to keep creating an awareness, making people understand how people feel about that bust and the hurt it causes."

Gilmore said she believes that in time, the bust will eventually be moved to the museum where it can be presented in the proper context.

Asked whether he was supportive of placing some type of additional historical context by the bust, Lee said he would instead focus on diminishing racial conflict in other ways.

"I propose to be certain that every Tennessean knows that I'm a governor who wants to mitigate any kind of racial tension, any kind of conflicts that we have in groups of citizens across this state, and will be working to do that in ways that I think are meaningful and substantive and bring about real change forward for this state."

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Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.