> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://capitolcommunicator.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# GEICO Pulls “Fort Pillow” Ad
- URL: https://capitolcommunicator.com/capitol-communicator-reports-that-geico-pulled-its-fort-pillow-ad/
- Published: 2020-06-24T18:22:10.000Z
- Updated: 2020-06-25T00:54:42.000Z
- Author: Capitol Communicator
- Tags: Advertising, #wp-top-center-sponsored, #Import 2026-10-08 18:50

**Historian Bob O’Connor could not believe the GEICO ad was still on the radio,** reports The Washington Post, “but there it was. The spot hawking homeowners insurance featured a woman talking about building a fort of pillows in her house, a normally innocuous description until she glibly dubbed it “Fort Pillow.”

In 1864, he said, Confederate troops massacred approximately 300 Union soldiers, mostly Black, after they had lifted their hands in surrender at Fort Pillow outside of Memphis. O’Connor said the attack was led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest — who went on to become the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan — and was motivated by the Confederate’s outrage that the North had enlisted black soldiers.”

Neither GEICO nor WTEM 980 responded to requests for comment, continued The Post’s post, but the ad disappeared from GEICO’s website after The Post reached out to company spokespeople and “the ad’s writer, Molly Burke with The Martin Agency based in Richmond, said it was no longer being aired.

More[ here](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/23/geico-quietly-takes-down-ad-referencing-civil-war-massacre-black-soldiers/?ref=capitolcommunicator.com).

More on the image [here](http://usslave.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-fort-pillow-massacre.html?ref=capitolcommunicator.com).