It’s time for SC to stop celebrating this holiday

As I was driving through my hometown in May, something pulled my attention away from an otherwise gorgeous day. There, waving over Main Street, was a banner announcing a Confederate Memorial Day tribute to be hosted by the area chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

That day, despite my outrage, I kept driving.

Later, I discovered South Carolina is one of six states that observe Confederate Memorial Day. The practice was established around 1866 to honor the lives of fallen soldiers because, at the time, no other such day existed. Since then, though, Memorial Day has become a national holiday. So why does South Carolina continue to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day?

The answer is simple: to honor the Confederacy.

So I ask the Legislature to end Confederate Memorial Day.

I know there will be opposition to this. I imagine even now some are arguing that ending the Confederate Memorial holiday would erase portions of South Carolina’s history. I can hear the chorus of “heritage, not hate” already.

To this I say: If we were truly sincere about preserving South Carolina’s history, we would honor the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Thousands of slaves died coming to South Carolina and even more died at the hands of slave owners.

Yet we devote no day to remembering slaves.

Why is that, I wonder? Why don’t we memorialize the lives of slaves? How many slaves have we forgotten over the course of 150 years?

Why should 28 percent of S.C. citizens be subjected to a government-sanctioned day that only highlights the fact that the state they call home has willfully sanitized its history? As equal citizens under the law — as our fellow man — do they not deserve more?

Perhaps instead of memorializing the Confederacy, South Carolina should heed the words of Gen. Robert E. Lee, that most famous Confederate: “I think it wiser … not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

We must stop passing by civil strife when we see it lain bare.

Today, I beg South Carolina to stop passing by.

This story was originally published August 28, 2017 at 2:00 PM with the headline "It’s time for SC to stop celebrating this holiday."