It's a rare part of the American South that does NOT have some kind of monument to the confederacy, or at least did have one.
It can be a bit of a shock to northern transplants. Connor Towne O'Neill was one of those, and he wondered in particular about the reverence shown for monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and a founder of the Ku Klux Klan.
O'Neill's examination of Forrest, his life, and its commemoration are contained in a book: Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy.
Forrest earned the nickname "that devil" in his lifetime. The author tells that story and more in this interview on the JX.