Mississippi governor Phil Bryant proclaimed on the website Sons of Confederate Veterans that April is to be “Confederate Heritage Month,” according to reports.
“Like his predecessors – both Republican and Democrat – who issued similar proclamations, Governor Bryant believes Mississippi’s history deserves study and reflection, no matter how unpleasant or complicated parts of it may be,” Clay Chandler said, the governor’s director of communications.
The “holiday” is planned for April 25th but, Chandler failed to directly mention the whole slavery part of the South’s uprising.
“Like the proclamation says, gaining insight from our mistakes and successes will help us move forward,” Chandler said.
According to the Guardian, leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi reacted by proposing a civil war remembrance of their own, called “Union Army Heritage Month.”
Mississippi governor declares Confederate Heritage Month. I declare: (^@JoshuaHol) https://t.co/x43aJSniAv pic.twitter.com/qSnndd5pdx
— M.S. Bellows, Jr. msbellows@c.im (@msbellows) April 4, 2016
“These white and black Mississippi patriots fought for the continuation of the United States of America as one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all,” Derrick Johnson, president of Mississippi’s NAACP, wrote to the Clarion-Ledger.
“Should not these soldiers be honored, too?”
A large group of diverse protesters gathered on the steps of the capitol, in Jackson.
From the Guardian:
Kathleen Chambers personified a shift in the state’s mentality: she is young and white, and instead of a southern drawl she spoke with the universal up-talk of young people.
“Any white people I know? They’re not OK with this,” she said to the local television station WAPT.
Of Bryant, she said: “He’s trying to turn a Confederate heritage into a good thing, when it’s not. It shouldn’t be celebrated. Especially we shouldn’t celebrate owning people in the past.”
https://twitter.com/thompsonwerk/status/716981190994079745
Featured image via Joshua Eller (Flickr)
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