5 States That Insist On Celebrating Confederate Memorial Day Every... Single... Year
The holiday was created to honor fallen Confederate soldiers. Georgia was the first state to mark Confederate Memorial Day as a state holiday, according to Savannah Now. It wasn't until the the Charleston 9 Massacre that former Ga. Gov. Nathan Deal eliminated Confederate Memorial Day in his state, citing its offensive history.
Elizabeth Rutherford Ellis is typically regarded as the mastermind behind the so-called great holiday. She chose April 26, which is also the first anniversary of Confederate Gen. Johnston's surrender to Union Major Gen. Sherman, as Confederate Memorial Day. Since then, several states have adopted the commemoration. Here's a list of several states that still celebrate.
Every fourth Monday in April is celebrated as Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama, according to WHNT. That means today, April 28, is recognized as an official holiday in the state. Alabama's history with the holiday goes back to 1901, when Confederate Memorial Day was made a state holiday, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Interestingly enough, this is one of three Confederate-related state holidays celebrated. Alabama also celebrates Robert E. Lee Day in January and Confederate President Jefferson Davis' birthday in June.
Like other southern states, Florida added Confederate Memorial Day as an official holiday in 1895, along with Gen. Lee's birthday, according to Jacksonville.com. Today, the sunshine state celebrates the holiday every year on April 26.
Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day on Jan. 19. According to the Texas Tribune, the holiday honors the lives of the Confederate president and Gen. Lee. Texas used to separate the birthdays of Davis and Lee with different holidays, but in 1973, they decided to consolidated into Confederate Heroes Day.
As you can expect, every year this holiday is celebrated, it's also met with backlash from folks who view Confederate Heroes Day as disrespectful to the legacy of slavery. In 2023, a bill was filed to get rid of the holiday. Rep. Christina Morales said 'We cannot stand by as our state continues to formally celebrate and glorify the men who believed so deeply that Black men and women did not have rights, that they would go to war.'
When Confederate Memorial Day is celebrated in Mississippi, government workers also get paid for their holiday off. Pushback surrounding the day has been championed by leaders like Sen. Derrick Simmons, who said the holiday is racist and 'awful for Mississippians.' He even wrote an op-ed for Mississippi Today saying, 'Celebrating Confederate Memorial Day is not only racist but is bad policy, bad governance and a deep stain on the values we claim to uphold today.'
May 10 marks the annual Confederate Memorial Day in South Carolina. According to Greenville Online, on this day, state offices and other businesses in the state are closed. Recently, there have been efforts to get rid of the holiday. In 2022, lawmakers proposed replacing Confederate Memorial Day with Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19.
For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
7 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's embrace of unchristian Christian nationalism
Pete Hegseth, widely considered the least qualified Defense secretary in American history, is hardly anyone's version of the ideal Christian husband and father. Only 45 years old, he's been married three times. His first marriage — to his high school sweetheart — lasted a mere four years, deteriorating after Hegseth admitted to multiple extramarital affairs. A couple of years later, he married his second wife, with whom he had three children. During that marriage, he fathered a child with a Fox News producer who eventually became his third wife. He paid off a woman who accused him of sexual assault (he denies the assault). He routinely passed out drunk at family gatherings and misbehaved in public when inebriated, according to numerous witnesses. His own mother once accused him of being 'an abuser of women,' though she later retracted her claims when Hegseth was facing Senate confirmation. Still, the Senate's Republican majority, cowed by President Trump, confirmed his appointment. Hegseth has two qualities that Trump prizes above all others. He is blindly loyal to the president, and he looks good on TV. After his installation, Hegseth proceeded to fire top military brass who happened to be Black or women or both. He has restored the names of Confederate generals to Army bases (Bragg and Benning). His petty 'anti-woke' crusade led him to strip the name of the assassinated gay rights leader Harvey Milk, a former Naval officer who served honorably, from a Navy ship. And he has considered doing the same to a ship named in honor of the abolitionist and Civil War hero Harriet Tubman. He has said that women do not belong in combat roles, and has kicked out transgender soldiers, cruelly stripping them of the pensions they earned for their service. In March, he shared classified information about an impending American airstrike in Yemen on an unsecured Signal group chat that included his wife, on purpose, and the editor of the Atlantic, by accident. He is, in short, the least serious man ever to lead this nation's armed forces. As if all that weren't dispiriting enough, Hegseth is now in bed (metaphorically) with a crusading Christian nationalist. Earlier this month, Hegseth made waves when he reposted on social media a CNN interview with Douglas Wilson, the pastor and theocrat who is working hard to turn the clock back on the rights of every American who is not white, Christian and male. In the interview, Wilson expounded on his patriarchal, misogynistic, authoritarian and homophobic views. Women, he said, should serve as 'chief executive of the home' and should not have the right to vote. (Their men can do that for them.) Gay marriage and gay sex should be outlawed once again. 'We know that sodomy is worse than slavery by how God responds to it,' he told CNN's Pamela Brown. (Slavery is 'unbiblical,' he avowed, though he did bizarrely defend it once, writing in 1990 a pamphlet that 'slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since.') When a new outpost of his church opened in Washington, D.C ., in July, Hegseth and his family were among the worshippers. CNN described Hegseth's presence as 'a major achievement' for Wilson. 'All of Christ for All of Life,' wrote Hegseth as he endorsed and reposted the interview. That is the motto of Wilson's expanding universe, which includes his Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, the center of his Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a network of more than 100 churches on four continents, parochial schools, a college, a publishing house and media platforms. 'All of Christ for All of Life' is a shorthand for the belief that Christian doctrines should shape every part of life — including government, culture and education. Wilson is a prolific author of books with titles such as 'Her Hand in Marriage,' 'Federal Husband,' and 'Reforming Marriage.' His book 'Fidelity' teaches 'what it means to be a one-woman man.' Doubtful it has crossed Hegseth's desk. 'God hates divorce,' writes Wilson in one of his books. Given the way sexual pleasure is celebrated in the Old and New Testaments, Wilson has a peculiarly dim view of sex. I mean, how many weddings have been graced with recitations from the Song of Solomon, with its thinly disguised allusions to pleasurable sexual intimacy? ('Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.') Wilson's world is considerably less sensual. 'A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants,' he writes in 'Fidelity.' 'A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.' Mutual sexual pleasure seems out of the question: 'The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.' Ugh. There is nothing particularly new here; Wilson's ideology is just another version of patriarchal figures using religion to fight back against the equality movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries. They are basically the hatemongers of the Westboro Baptist Church dressed up in respectable clothing. 'Some people may conflate Christian nationalism and Christianity because they both use the symbols and language of Christianity, such as a Bible, a cross and worship songs,' says the group Christians Against Christian Nationalism on its website. 'But Christian nationalism uses the veneer of Christianity to advance its own aims — to point to a political figure, party or ideology instead of Jesus.' What you have in people like Hegseth and Wilson are authoritarian men who hide behind their religion to execute the most unchristian of agendas. God may hate divorce, but from my reading of the Bible, God hates hypocrisy even more. Bluesky: @rabcarianThreads: @rabcarian
San Francisco Chronicle
17 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Oakland protestors cheer California's efforts to counter GOP-led redistricting
Nearly 2,000 miles from the epicenter of a Republican-led movement to redraw congressional maps, hundreds of people gathered Saturday morning at Oakland's Lake Merritt Amphitheater holding signs with such messages as 'HANDS OFF DEMOCRACY' and 'CALIFORNIA BITES BACK.' For about 90 minutes, that standing-room-only crowd listened to a series of speakers that included Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas, Rep. Lateefah Simon and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee. Though they each took different approaches, their speeches all focused on the same basic credo: 'Stop President Donald Trump's takeover.' More than 200 events spanning 34 states echoed that theme Saturday. In Texas, Trump is pushing a new congressional map that could net Republicans five additional seats in the 2026 midterm elections. And, experts believe, he doesn't plan to stop there. As part of his bid to maintain Republicans' slim U.S. House majority in the next elections, Trump is reportedly eyeing new maps in such states as Missouri, Florida and Ohio. Few metro areas protested those efforts in larger numbers Saturday than the Bay Area, where a broad coalition of Democratic organizations organized at least 25 such gatherings everywhere from parks to government buildings to freeway overpasses. A rally even sprouted up in a Tesla showroom at Palo Alto's Stanford Shopping Center. 'It's a real small world, and the repercussions are real and imminent,' said Rick Levine, a retired doctor who lives in Oakland and attended Saturday's rally. 'Texas is not that far away. We can't let what's happening there get any closer.' Perhaps none of the other Bay Area protests could match Oakland's star power, which might have been fitting. Just five days earlier, during a rambling press conference about crime, Trump mentioned this East Bay city of roughly 440,000 residents among the places he might deploy National Guard troops. While listing major urban centers that he accused of having egregious crime problems, he said, 'And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore there.' The off-hand remark gave Lee, who served in Congress during Trump's first administration and was on the House floor during the Jan. 6 attacks, timely material for Saturday's final address. But instead of dwelling on what she called the latest time 'Trump trashed us,' Lee reminded the crowd — much of which was composed of people over 60 — that she's from Texas. Minority Democrats left that state to stall the Legislature from passing Trump's redistricting plan there. Once a minimum number of legislators are present, Texas' new-look districts could still pass. 'As someone who was born in a border town, in the immigrant community of El Paso, Texas, I remember the days when Black and brown people had no political representation,' Lee said. 'But because of the sacrifices and the demands of the people, El Paso has had Latino mayors and now its first Black mayor. … Donald Trump and his MAGA extremist Republicans know what's going on there, and they're trying to stop it.' 'I know Texas well,' she added. 'This is a coordinated, dangerous effort to take power from the people.' Boos emanated from the crowd, which started at several hundred people and grew to around 1,000. The large turnout reinforced why California recently became the first Democratic-led state to insert itself into the redistricting issue. On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California will hold a Nov. 4 special election to temporarily let lawmakers — not California's independent redistricting commission — draw new congressional boundaries, which could give Democrats five more House seats. Dozens of signs at Saturday's Oakland rally referenced that strategic counter. In front of protesters, a podium with a microphone sat on the back of the type of farming truck known to carry egg crates. Next to the vehicle, a huge inflatable chicken stood, with hair like Trump's and a red wattle reminiscent of his signature red tie. To keep with the poultry theme, three words were emblazoned across the adjacent sign: 'Stop Being Fowl.' At one point midway through the rally, volunteers from a local nonprofit stood on the truck holding large cardboard eggs, which a community organizer called 'hatchlings of authoritarianism.' Over the next 10 minutes, pictures of four Republicans — Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Chief Justice John Roberts and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, a key architect of Project 2025 — 'hatched' from the eggs. Along the way, the organizer detailed how each of them was instrumental in Trump's redistricting efforts Those moments of levity soon gave way to an emotional address from Simon, who discussed seeing National Guard troops in the streets of Washington, D.C., this week and implored Democrats not to succumb to Trump's tactics. 'Republicans aren't playing by the rules,' she said. 'When they go low, we go hella high.' During Simon's speech, Oakland resident Jim Williams stood toward the back of the crowd in a navy blue hat with 'DEMOCRACY' emblazoned across the front. As he watched her raise her voice, hyping up some protesters to the point where they were jumping up and down, Williams suddenly felt optimistic. 'I just love her raw power and energy,' said Williams, 71, who tries to attend every anti-Trump rally in Oakland. 'People like Lateefah, who are kind of in that middle generation, can carry that torch for the party when people like Barbara Lee retire.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Military airstrike on gem mining town kills at least 21 in Myanmar
BANGKOK (AP) — An airstrike by Myanmar's military on the town of Mogok, the center of the Southeast Asian country's lucrative gem-mining industry, has killed at least 21 people including a pregnant woman, an armed opposition group, local residents and Myanmar's online media said Saturday. The incident was the latest in a series of frequent and deadly military airstrikes, often causing civilian casualties, that have intensified in a bid to reclaim territory from resistance groups amid the ongoing civil war that erupted after the army seized power in February 2021. The attack occurred Thursday at 8:30 p.m. in Shwegu ward in Mogok township, about 115 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, said Lway Yay Oo, a spokesperson for the the Ta'ang National Liberation Army. The TNLA is one of the powerful ethnic militias fighting against the army near the Chinese border. 'About 21 civilians were killed. Seven others were injured. Homes and Buddhist monastery buildings were also damaged,' Lway Yay Oo said. Mogok, the ruby-mining center in the upper Mandalay region, was seized in July 2024 by the TNLA, a member of an alliance of ethnic militias that seized a large swath of territory in northeastern Myanmar in an offensive that began in late 2023. The group's statement released Friday night on its Telegram social media channel said 16 women were among the victims killed in the airstrike that appeared to target a Buddhist monastery in Mogok's Shwegu ward. It said 15 houses were also damaged when a jet fighter dropped a bomb. Two Mogok residents told The Associated Press on Saturday that the death toll had risen to nearly 30, though the exact casualties could not be independently confirmed. The residents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were afraid of being arrested by the military, said the death toll was high because one of the bombed houses had been hosting visitors to the pregnant woman. Independent online media, including Myanmar Now and Democratic Voice of Burma, released pictures and videos said to be of debris in the aftermath of the airstrike. The military did not comment on the incident in Mogok. In the past, the army has said it only attacks legitimate targets of war, accusing the resistance forces of being terrorists. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict. The military government has stepped up airstrikes against the armed pro-democracy People's Defense Force and ethnic militias that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades. The resistance forces have no defense against air attacks. The TNLA's statement said that another 17 people including two Buddhist monks had been killed and 20 others were injured in the first two weeks of August by airstrikes in areas controlled by the group. About 16 people, mostly truck drivers, were killed in airstrikes last Monday on a convoy of trucks that were parked on the road due to heavy fighting near the town of Sagaing in central Myanmar, according to independent Myanmar media reports. Opponents and independent analysts estimate the army now controls less than half the country while maintaining a tenacious grip on much of central Myanmar, including the capital, Naypyidaw. It has accelerated counter-offensives ahead of the election it has promised to hold at the end of this year in order to retake areas controlled by opposition forces. Critics say the elections won't be democratic because there is no free media and most leaders of Suu Kyi's party have been arrested. The plan is widely seen as an attempt to legitimize and maintain the military's rule. Several opposition groups have said they would seek to derail the election.
