By Roy S. Johnson
How did you commemorate Confederate Memorial Day? Did you grill? Go to the park with the kids? Did you invite a few family and friends over, sing “Dixie,” and share stories of the great old days passed down through generations as a Confederate flag flew proudly in the backyard?
Did you raise a long-neck bottle and toast, well, the biggest L in U.S. history? Did you honor the treasonous family feud that sacrificed almost 620,000 American lives? (God bless all their souls.) Did you shed a tear over a war waged to defend the right of Southern states to enslave and mistreat human beings for profit?
Or did you quietly—yet complicitly—stay home and not think about the reason behind the respite?
You probably didn’t do much of anything Monday—the fourth Monday in April. Alabama has touted that otherwise benign box on the calendar Confederate Memorial Day since 1901, the same year we crafted the wretched state constitution that, despite noble efforts to exorcise its most demonic ink, remains an embarrassing stain upon our state.
You, like me, probably worked. Didn’t even think about the “holiday.”
You probably didn’t even do much of anything even if you are among the 28,000 or so state employees given Monday off as one of Alabama’s 12 state holidays, three of which commemorate the Confederacy. Much of anything except stay home—courtesy state taxpayers. You’re welcome.
Though I’m sure at least some Black state employees were not completely thrilled at being forced to stay home in recognition of the Confederacy.
How do you properly memorialize such an egregious travesty?
By killing it. By commit- ting it to the dustbin of history, to certainly be taught in our schools, as should all history—the good, the bad, and the racist. But to stop recognizing it, and our other holidays … as a day of rest— courtesy of state taxpayers.
Instead, give it a rest.
Many Southern states have done so: In 2015, Georgia re-branded Confederate Memorial Day as “State Holiday.” Two years later, Arkansas stopped recognizing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Rev. Martin Luther King on the same holiday (which Alabama still sickeningly does). Two years ago, Louisiana ripped its Lee holiday and Confederate Memorial Day from among its state holidays.
Not us, though some tried. Often. Last year two Alabama House bills seeking to flush, respectively, the Lee holiday and Confederate Memorial Day, expired beneath the desk in committee.
Earlier this month, the House unanimously passed HB4, a compromise bill from Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D- Birmingham, and several other African American lawmakers that would allow state employees to choose as their taxpayer holiday either Juneteenth or the birthday of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, already a state holiday.
Juneteenth is a federal holiday honoring freedom reaching the last slaves in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and months after passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery. HB4 would make Juneteenth an official state holiday. It’s already a paid holiday in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Since 2021 Gov. Kay Ivey has cel- ebrated it by proclamation each year, tantamount to stepping out of her office and tooting a party blower. It just makes noise.
HB4 would make Juneteenth a state holiday without creating a new day underwritten by taxpayers.
Ten House members sat out the vote; the remaining 58 Republicans and 25 Democrats voted affirmative, but with just six days left in the current legislative session, HB4 hasn’t yet received an invite to the Senate party.
Sen. Vivian Figures introduced a bill (SB85) that proposes separating Gen. Robert E. Lee from MLK Day and pairing his holiday with Columbus Day. Fitting, and I’ll just leave that right there. It’s been squashed in committee.
Interestingly, Alabama Republicans may have already—and unwittingly— provided solid legal grounds for quashing Confederate Memorial Day and all other days commemorating the Confederacy.
Yeah, they did.
In March, they giddily shoved through SB129, which bans diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at state institutions. They did so based on unproven misconceptions about DEI, unrelated (also unproven) classroom anecdotes and fear—of a world that no longer looks, behaves, and loves as they do.
They did so with little regard for unintended consequences. The bill also bans any program that “advocates for a divisive concept.”
Is anything more divisive than the Confederacy, which sought secession from the Union to continue to enslave people for profit?
Is there anything more divisive than seeking to build a new nation on the backs, blood, and bodies of enslaved people?
Is there anything more divisive than sending young men to die in the name of Audemus jura nostra defendere—our state slogan, translated: “We dare to maintain our rights”—for a system dependent on the enslavement of people for its very survival?
We kill DEI yet dare to defend our right to be divisive. Unless ….
SB129, graced with Ivey’s signature, becomes law on October 1.
On that date, by my definition, Confederate holidays will be illegal in the state of Alabama.
Hand me a long-neck brew.
