TENNESSEE: Confederate Memorial Day Latest Casualty of Symbol Backlash

As traditions and symbols of the Old South continue to fall,Confederate Memorial Day has emerged as the latest target in one North Mississippi county.

Copyright 2015 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. DAVID GOLDMAN

Copyright 2015 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
DAVID GOLDMAN

Supervisors in Leflore County voted last week to stop taking the holiday, the last Monday of April, and allow county employees to take another day off instead. The new holiday hasn’t been decided. In Greenwood, about 130 miles south of Memphis and the Leflore County seat, city workers started getting Columbus Day in lieu of Confederate Memorial Day a number of years ago.

The move comes amid a flurry of actions across the South to shed any official association with vestiges of the past considered offensive by many in the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina, church shootings. Debate over the Confederate flag has also moved to Mississippi, which is the only state to incorporate the Confederate battle flag into its state flag.

As for Confederate Memorial Day, DeSoto County’s cities, like Greenwood, decided the issue well before the recent backlash began. Hernando, Horn Lake, Olive Branch and Southaven all opted over the past few years to take Good Friday as a city holiday rather than Confederate Memorial Day. DeSoto County lets its workers decide each year whether they want Good Friday or Confederate Memorial Day, according to Supervisor Lee Caldwell. She said workers most recently have chosen Good Friday.

As a state, Mississippi continues to recognize the holiday. It’s one of three Southern states to do so, along with Alabama and Georgia. While observed as a paid holiday for state employees, department and agency heads have discretion on whether to close. Other Southern states, while not observing Confederate Memorial Day specifically, honor the Confederate cause in some way, either officially or unofficially, on dates ranging from late April to June 3, the birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Confederate Memorial Day began shortly after the war ended in 1865, when a group of women in Columbus, Georgia, held it for the first time to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers and honor the cause for which they fought.

In Tennessee, Nathan Bedford Forrest Day is still being recognized, and was celebrated in Memphis on Sunday with several hundred supporters gathering for an event at the Confederate general’s statue in Health Sciences Park, formerly Forrest Park. The day, which officially was Monday — Forrest’s 194th birthday — was established 44 years ago under a state law that requires the governor to annually proclaim a special observance for Forrest along with six other days of special observances.

Haslam signed the Forrest Day proclamation in early June, though later last month said he is in favor of removing the bust of Forrest from the Capitol building in Nashville and from specialty license plate.

It remains to be seen whether support for such state-sanctioned observances will crumble, as with the Confederate flag that was voted off the South Carolina capitol last week or the remains of Forrest that are being considered for removal from Health Sciences Park in Memphis. If they do fall, observers say, it will be part of a sea change in attitudes that has occurred with breathtaking speed.

“The speed of all this is astonishing,” said John R. Neff, director of the Center for Civil War Research at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. “At its root, these symbols touch our individual sense of self. Ultimately, for both sides, we have shaped our own individuality around these symbols, at least in part. And it seems to me that our sense of self is rarely amenable to such rapid change.”

Neff said the local Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter had permission at one time to come onto the Ole Miss campus and observe Confederate Memorial Day with a ceremony at the Confederate cemetery behind the basketball arena.

“It was a pretty serious thing for them when I first got to (Ole Miss) 16 years ago,” Neff said, “but I don’t really have much sense of whether it remains as important. The university denied them the ability to bring and fire a cannon a few years ago; maybe that has had an effect on things.”

In DeSoto County’s cities, leaders say there was a groundswell of support to change the holiday to Good Friday well before the current controversy.

“The Hernando employees were polled a few years ago and overwhelmingly wanted to swap that holiday for Good Friday,” Mayor Chip Johnson said. “The Board of Aldermen voted in favor of the employees’ choice.”

Southaven City Administrator Chris Wilson said Confederate Memorial Day was replaced by Good Friday in that city in 2007, and Olive Branch Mayor Scott Phillips said a new employee handbook adopted by aldermen in November 2010 substituted Good Friday for Confederate Memorial Day in Olive Branch.

Horn Lake Mayor Allen Latimer said his city took the same action because so many people had plans over Easter weekend and wanted Good Friday off.

In Greenwood last week, the decision to drop the holiday wasn’t without detractors.

Phil Wolfe, the only white member on the Leflore County Board of Supervisors, said he was “dead set against” dropping Confederate Memorial Day.

Neff, the Center for Civil War Research director, said events of recent weeks across the South have made an interesting wrap to the sesquicentennial honoring the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s end.

“The last several days, in essence, have said more about the importance of the Civil War, 150 years after its close, than all the events and observances of the past four sesquicentennial years.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

–commercialappeal.com

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MISSISSIPPI: Confederate Flag Battle Moves to Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. — Now that South Carolina has removed a Confederate battle flag from its statehouse lawn, the next big struggle over Old South symbols is shaping up in Mississippi, where the rebel X has fluttered over the Capitol and other public buildings for more than a century as part of the state flag.

Many in Mississippi are girding for a long, contentious debate about an emblem that has come under fresh scrutiny since the tragedy that ultimately propelled the change in South Carolina — the massacre of nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston. The white man charged in the slayings, Dylann Storm Roof, had posed with the Confederate battle flag in photos that were posted online before the attack that police say was motivated by racial hatred.

In this July 6, 2015 photograph, a participant of a "Save the Mississippi State Flag Rally" at the Capitol, holds a Mississippi flag as she listens to speakers in Jackson, Miss. Mississippi is the only state that includes the Confederate battle emblem in its state flag. The rebel X has been there since 1894. In a 2001 statewide election, people voted nearly 2-to-1 to keep the design. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

In this July 6, 2015 photograph, a participant of a “Save the Mississippi State Flag Rally” at the Capitol, holds a Mississippi flag as she listens to speakers in Jackson, Miss. Mississippi is the only state that includes the Confederate battle emblem in its state flag. The rebel X has been there since 1894. In a 2001 statewide election, people voted nearly 2-to-1 to keep the design. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

In both South Carolina and Mississippi, Confederate symbols have caused friction for decades.

Supporters embrace the battle flag as a reminder of ancestors who fought for the Confederacy or as an emblem of regional pride. Critics see it as a symbol of a defiant white supremacist society that fought to perpetuate slavery and segregation.

Mississippi NAACP president Derrick Johnson says the Confederate symbol should be erased from the Mississippi banner because it represents racial hatred and exclusion.

“We appeal to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to recognize the moral urgency for Mississippi to move without delay toward our next phase of progression,” Johnson said Thursday. “It’s time to write the next chapter of our history.”

Johnson said Republican Bryant needs to show “the same moral courage and leadership” as other southern elected officials who advocate retiring the Confederate battle flag to museums, including the Republican governors of Alabama and South Carolina.

Alabama’s Robert Bentley ordered Confederate flags removed from the state Capitol grounds in Montgomery after the Charleston slayings. And while South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had previously supported keeping the battle flag flying outside the Capitol in Columbia, she reversed course in the past three weeks and pushed for a new law to remove the flag as a sign of reconciliation.

Mississippi is the only state that includes the Confederate battle emblem in its state flag; it’s been there since 1894. In a 2001 statewide election, people voted nearly 2-to-1 to keep the design.

After the Charleston massacre, Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn became the first top-level Republican in the GOP-controlled state to say Mississippi should change its flag. Gunn, a leader in his local Baptist church, said his faith led him to believe the Confederate emblem he said had become offensive to many. The state’s two Republican U.S. senators, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, followed his lead and advocated change.

Bryant and Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves say they stand by results of the flag election 14 years ago. But, they also say if the design is reconsidered, it should be decided again by voters and not by legislators.

Jeppie Barbour, a brother of Republican former Gov. Haley Barbour, said last week that Mississippi should keep its flag because the Confederate emblem represents ancestors who fought for “the freedom of the South not to get bossed around by a bunch of Yankees.”

“Every time that we do something, we have a busload from somewhere up north come to tell us how terrible we are,” Jeppie Barbour said at the state Capitol. “I don’t think we’re so terrible.”

One of Jeppie Barbour’s sons, Republican consultant and lobbyist Henry Barbour, is on the other side of the debate.

“How can we keep things the same?” Henry Barbour tweeted June 22 after Gunn called for change. “The flag didn’t cause Charleston, but it represents hatred to many, especially our black brothers/sisters.”

This is a statewide election year in Mississippi, with the governor, lieutenant governor and all legislative seats on the ballot. The next regular legislative session begins in January, and Bryant says he won’t call legislators into special session before then to consider changing the flag. He says he reserves special sessions for disaster recovery or economic development projects, and he believes the flag fits neither category.

–commercialappeal.com

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TENNESSEE: Governor Has No Choice But to Honor Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest

When it came time to honor a Confederate general and onetime Ku Klux Klan leader by proclaiming Monday “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam didn’t exactly volunteer.

Haslam is currently trying to get the rebel army leader’s bust out of the state Capitol building in Nashville amid a widening national controversy over Confederate symbols and memorabilia. But Tennessee Code 15-2-101 designates July 13 as “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day,” just one of several Confederate observances, including Jan. 19, which is “Robert E. Lee Day” and June 3, known in Tennessee as “Confederate Decoration Day.”

“Each year it is the duty of the governor of this state to proclaim the following as days of special observance,” the first section of the code states.

The Republican governor said last month Tennessee has other, more worthy sons and daughters to laud.

“Forrest would not be my choice of one of the Tennesseans that we honor,” he said, according to The Tennessean.

The Tennessee governor had no choice but to proclaim Monday "Nathan Bedford Forrest Day," according to his staff. (AP)

The Tennessee governor had no choice but to proclaim Monday “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day,” according to his staff. (AP)

Haslam signed the proclamation on June 2, The Tennessean reported, 15 days before Dylann Roof allegedly walked into the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina and shot dead nine parishioners in a racially-motivated killing, touching off a national debate on the appropriateness of displaying Confederate symbols and remembrances after photos surfaced showing Roof holding the rebel flag.

The proclamation identifies Forrest only as “a recognized military figure in America and a native Tennessean.”

“Now, therefore, I Bill Haslam, Governor of the State of Tennessee, do hereby proclaim July 13, 2015, as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in Tennessee and encourage all citizens to join me in this worthy observance,” the document states.

The debate over Forrest, long revered by some Tennesseeans but now seen as an increasingly polarizing figure, hit a fever pitch earlier this month in Memphis, where the City Council unanimously approved a resolution last week to evict the remains of Forrest and his wife from Health Sciences Park, where they have been buried for 110 years. That decision prompted some to charge that people are overreacting in an attempt to cleanse the state of an important chapter in its history.

“This appears to me to be another knee jerk reaction to that anti-Confederate hysteria,” Lee Millar, of Sons of Confederate Veterans, told LocalMemphis.com. “Some people here are trying to get on the bandwagon in erasing Confederate history and it’s just wrong.”

Actually moving Forrest’s remains could prove as difficult as canceling the day that is dedicated to him. State lawmakers would need to enact legislation to change the law in order to stop future days honoring Forrest, according to The Tennessean.

Forrest, who built a fortune as a slave trader and planter before the Civil War, was a lieutenant general in the Confederate army. After the war, he became the Ku Klux Klan’s first grand wizard, although he later disavowed the racist group.

–foxnews.com

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LOUISIANA: With Confederate Flag Gone, is Fleur-de-Lis Next?

The Confederate flag is down. Will Louisiana’s fleur-de-lis be the next to go?

That’s the question posed by some in New Orleans, who point to the emblem’s previous connections to slavery as the reason why it must go.

Quarterbacks Tony Romo (left) of the Dallas Cowboys and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints greet each other at midfield after an NFL game on Sept. 28, 2014, in Arlington, Texas. The Saints' logo, the fleur de lis, is under fire by some for its racist past. AP Photo

Quarterbacks Tony Romo (left) of the Dallas Cowboys and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints greet each other at midfield after an NFL game on Sept. 28, 2014, in Arlington, Texas. The Saints’ logo, the fleur de lis, is under fire by some for its racist past.
AP Photo

The questions arose during a recent meeting of the New Orleans City Council where the removal of Confederate monuments was discussed.Rudy Mills, head of the grassroots group Remove Racist Images, said he’d like all vestiges of the slavery and Confederacy removed from the city. Mills said that includes the iconic fleur-de-lis.

“Check the history. It’s also a very racist symbol,” he told the council.

While many see the fleur-de-lis as a symbol of all things New Orleans and Louisiana, it does have a dark history.

“Code noir, those words are French and mean black code,” slave historian Dr. Ibrahima Seck told USA Today, referring to a set of regulations adopted in Louisiana in 1724 as a means to govern the state’s slave population. Among the provisions of the code was branding runaway slaves with the fleur-de-lis as punishment.

Other parts of the brutal code included whippings, cropping slave’s ears and, for repeat offenders, slicing the person’s hamstrings.

Seck said the fleur de lis carries powerful symbolism, but said it also has become a sign of unity for many in New Orleans, especially during the rebuilding following hurricane Katrina.

Tulane history professor Terence Fitzmorris agreed.

“The fleur-de-lis was the symbol of a monarchy. The United States of America was a slave-holding republic, not just the south or the Confederacy. Where do you stop? Do you get rid of all symbols?” he told WMAZ.

For its part, the New Orleans City Council remained mum on any removal of the fleur-de-lis. Instead, it voted – unanimously – to begin the process of removing four Confederate monuments in the city.

As Councilman Councilman Jared Brossett put it: “New Orleans is a city with a bright future, but we have a dark past and so does our country. I’m not under the delusion that the removal of a statue or the renaming of a circle will magically” result in racial harmony,” he said, but added the monuments should represent what we want to be, not “what we were at our worst.”

–al.com

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SOUTH CAROLINA: Major Race Issues Remain in S.C. and Beyond

Legions of people clapped, cheered and cried as South Carolina lowered the Confederate battle flag. But the euphoria of a moment that was more than a decade in the making quickly began to shift to a hard question to answer: What exactly had been accomplished for race relations in the United States? Was it more symbolic than substantive?

While the Confederate flag may be gone from the Statehouse grounds, difficult racial problems remain in South Carolina and beyond, experts say. John Bazemore / AP

While the Confederate flag may be gone from the Statehouse grounds, difficult racial problems remain in South Carolina and beyond, experts say.
John Bazemore / AP

A flag is gone. But discrimination, poverty and inequality still exist around the country, with some wondering if the time and energy spent on the Confederate battle flag might have been better used tackling other racial issues facing Americans.

“It was easy to focus on the flag, as opposed to the issues that have divided blacks and whites historically,” said Carol Swain, a law and political science professor at Vanderbilt University.

But a symbolic victory is still a victory, others argued, with this one meaning more than most — that the feelings of a minority population perpetually outvoted and not always considered in the South had finally been acknowledged. The abrupt shift in political willingness to take down the flag came just weeks after nine black people — including a revered minister and legislator — were shot to death during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston; photos of the white man charged with their slayings showed him displaying the Confederate flag and authorities have described the slayings as a hate crime.

In the years before, it was viewed as political suicide to push to remove the flag from the statehouse grounds. Former Govs. David Beasley of South Carolina and Roy Barnes of Georgia were voted out of office over the issue. Beasley had proposed relocating the flag from the Statehouse to a monument. Barnes had introduced a new state flag to reduce the size of the Confederate battle symbol emblazoned on it.

Elsie Lee, a retired South Carolina state employee, thought about what her parents went through in the South as the Confederate flag, which has been adopted by segregationists and supremacists over the years, slowly came down from a flagpole in front of the state capitol.

“This is the most important thing happening in this country,” said Lee, who lived through the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. “You just see everybody coming together. … I wish that my parents were here to see this.”

The ceremony on Friday when the flag was removed brought out a jubilant, hundreds-deep multiracial crowd. Some chanted “USA” and “hey, hey, hey, goodbye” as gray-dressed South Carolina troopers lowered the flag in a six-minute ceremony. Jayme L. Bradford, 42, a journalism professor at Voorhees College in Denmark, S.C., watched it come down and said now that it’s gone, race relations may get better.

“This moment has been a long time coming,” she said. “It always haunts me. It always reminds me that racism is alive and well.”

Still, no one is naive enough to believe that taking down the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s statehouse grounds will magically end racism or discrimination in South Carolina or the South, said Trent Brown, a Mississippi native and American Studies professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. There are still discussions about policing and voting rights to be had, he said.

More blacks live in poverty than anyone else in the United States — 27.2 percent, compared with 9.6 percent of whites, 10.5 percent of Asians and 23.5 percent of Hispanics of all races, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 2.5 million African Americans were arrested in 2013 — second only to the 6.2 million whites arrested, according to the FBI. But there were more black men than white in state and federal prisons in 2013 — 526,000 compared with 454,100, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The South went through a major symbolism shift during the civil rights movement, when the signage of Jim Crow laws — like “Whites Only” and “Colored Only” signs on water fountains, restaurants and bathrooms — was forced down by the federal government. The backlash against Confederate imagery — a relic of the post-Reconstruction days when white Southerners regained control of state governments after the Civil War — doesn’t confer new rights to minorities like the removal of Jim Crow signs did, but it will make a difference in the long run, Brown said.

“It doesn’t change poverty in South Carolina. It doesn’t change access to certain kinds of power. It doesn’t change disabilities or discriminations that people labor under,” Brown said. “I think the flag change is not a sign that everything is now fine, that the work of reconciliation is done. I think it is an important measure but I don’t think people who celebrate the flag coming down will or should see it as the end of the conversation, rather as a step in the conversation.”

“When a black citizen of South Carolina approaches the Capitol today, the flag is gone. It was there yesterday,” he said. “It says something about participation, about access, about belonging in a community and I certainly wouldn’t sell that short.”

While the removal of the flag doesn’t immediately eradicate the issues faced by African-Americans and others, it does set the stage for reconciliation and to provide a path for confronting issues of inequality, experts and advocates said.

“There’s a clear sense of reconciliation to some extent,” said D’Andra Orey, a political science professor at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., the only state left with the Confederate battle flag as part of its state flag. “You saw folks actually hugging folks of different races … White leaders, black citizens, those individuals were in harmony, if you will, so in many ways this is a form or a first step of racial reconciliation.”

–The Associated Press

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