Shadow Cast: Three States Celebrate Confederate General Lee On MLK, Jr. Day

January 20th, 2016

Awake Goy

Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Confederate General Robert E. Lee were both born in the month of January.

In 1983, the U.S. legislature enacted a bill that was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan that established the third Monday In January as a federal holiday in honor of the Rev/Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, the legendary civil rights leader. Since that landmark legislation, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas have chosen to celebrate the Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s birthday on the same day as the King’s holiday. Many across the country find this incongruous as we seek to move beyond the blight of past slavery and racial segregation.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson supports legislation that will separate the Lee’s birthday celebration from the Martin Luther King Jr.’s Federal Holiday. However, last year Arkansas State Legislature voted down a bill that would have moved the Lee’s celebration to a day in November that would become a “Confederate Veterans’ Day”.

In 2015, Georgia’s official state calendar listed the third Monday in January as the holiday celebration date for both Rev/Dr. King and General Lee. But this pairing was eliminated on the 2016 calendar: The King’s celebration continues to be scheduled for the nationally designed third Monday. The Lee’s celebration has been subsumed under the rubric “State Holiday” – as has been Confederate Memorial Day – and listed as November 25.

The role of Confederate symbols in perpetuating racial anger and hurt is an ongoing issue particularly in some southern states. In South Carolina, for several years there was an annual protest march on the Marin Luther King, Jr. Day, in Columbia, against the flying of the Confederate flag on the statehouse grounds. Recently, the S.C. Legislature passed a bill that was signed into law by the Governor that ended the practice. This legislation was motivated by the outrage that stemmed from the June 18, 2015 killing of nine worshippers in a Charleston church by an enraged young white man who had been photographed at an earlier date holding a gun and a Confederate flag.

On last Monday, all three persons currently vying for the democratic nomination for president were present at a King Day celebration held at the S.C. State Capitol in Columbia. Hillary Clinton, the front runner in most polls, said: “Dr. King died with his work unfinished, and it is up to us to see it through.” In his brief speech, Bernie Sanders focused on the right of affordable health care for all Americans. The lone Republican candidate to participate in a King Day celebration was Dr. Ben Carson, who attended a community awards breakfast and rode in a parade in honor of the slain civil rights leader held in Myrtle Beach, S.C.