Lexington 1 of 8 counties closed on Confederate holiday. It’ll cost you $250,000
Lexington County is the only Midlands county that observes Confederate Memorial Day by shutting down government offices. It’s one of eight South Carolina counties that observe the holiday, which was made a state holiday in 2000.
The same bill that declared May 10 a state holiday added Martin Luther King Jr. Day to the state’s list of official holidays, making South Carolina the last state to declare MLK Day a holiday.
Confederate Memorial Day was started to honor the lives of those killed in the Civil War, which most historians say was fought by the South to uphold the institution of slavery.
Lexington County Council Chairman Scott Whetstone said the county observes Confederate Memorial Day because it follows the state’s holiday schedule. There are no black council members leading the county.
Whetstone said former council members decided to adopt the legal holiday and “council members since that time have just continued” observing it.
“This would allow the county to be on the same schedule with school districts and state government,” Whetstone wrote. “We will continue to follow state holiday schedule as they chose the days.”
No Lexington County school districts will be closed. Whetstone did not respond to additional questions.
While Lexington County offices will be shut down on Friday, the county will still spend an estimated $250,000 on a day’s worth of pay for its 1,800 employees to be off, according to county data.
A survey of all 46 counties by The State determined that these counties also will close in observance of Confederate Memorial Day:
- Allendale
- Anderson
- Cherokee
- Colleton
- Dillon
- McCormick
- Oconee
Of the counties opting to close on Confederate Memorial Day, five are predominantly white, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Lexington County’s reported population is 80 percent white. Allendale County is the only participating county that has a largely African American population.
All non-essential South Carolina state employees will have the day off on Friday and state government offices will close.
Some South Carolinians say the state should continue honoring those who answered the call to serve the state during the Civil War, arguing that many who fought for the South did not own slaves and did not support slavery.
Many descendants of enslaved people have rallied through the years for an end to celebrations of the Confederacy. Critics argue that honoring those who fought for the Confederacy as heroes mutes the history of racism, dehumanization and cyclical oppression faced by African Americans and other black people in the United States.
Irmo councilman Barry Walker is one of few African American local government leaders in Lexington County. He said he sees the holiday as a celebration of Southern heritage, not as a state-mandated sanctioning of slavery.
“I mean, hell, it’s a day off,” he said. “I’m for taking a day off anytime I can get it.”
Walker, who is running for mayor of Irmo, said he isn’t offended by Confederate Memorial Day. He’ll use the day to revisit South Carolina’s past and maybe visit meaningful historical sites in the Midlands, he said.
South Carolina is one of the few states that officially observe Confederate Memorial Day, numbering among Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina, though not all states celebrate it on the same day. Georgia, where the holiday is reported to have started, removed Confederate Memorial Day from its legal holidays list and replaced it with the generic “State Holiday.”
The first shots of the Civil War were fired in South Carolina and the Confederacy’s deep roots are still evident in the heart of the state, on the State House grounds.
Though the Confederate flag was removed from the State House grounds following the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015, the capitol is surrounded by statues of Confederate generals and soldiers. The grounds also feature statues of slave owners and a monument honoring the “father of gynecology,” who performed experiments on enslaved women.
Joseph Alley, a former Methodist minister in the Midlands, said his family has direct ties to the Civil War but the holiday should come to an end.
“The past needs to be put in the past,” he said.
Alley’s great-grandfather, David Alley, fought for the South and nearly died in prison at Gettysburg, he said. Once he recovered from his injuries, David Alley helped establish the Confederate relic room in Columbia, Joseph Alley said. That’s the story that was passed down to him, Alley said, and it wasn’t until he gained awareness as an adult that he realized the implications.
“It was a terrible, terrible time in the history of our country and I can thoroughly understand why people of color, who were central to the fight over whether they could be chattel or not, could look back and think, ‘My, my, How could people who call themselves Christians do this?’” Alley said.
In the 1970s, Alley was on staff at what was then the Methodist Church (not yet united). He said he was one of a group of ministers to take a stand against segregation and push the church in South Carolina to unite. And he worked to bring together black Methodist congregants and white ones — even when it was uncomfortable, he said.
This story was originally published May 8, 2019 at 11:05 AM.