Mississippi Protesters Call for End to Confederate Holiday

TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — On a day that many state and native authorities workplaces have been closed for Accomplice Memorial Day in Mississippi, protesters on Monday mentioned the state must cease commemorating the Confederacy.

A number of members of Indivisible Northeast Mississippi held indicators denouncing the vacation in entrance of a Accomplice monument on the previous Lee County Courthouse in Tupelo, the Northeast Mississippi Day by day Journal reported.

Mississippi legislation designates the final Monday in April as Accomplice Memorial Day. The protesters additionally criticized Republican Gov. Tate Reeves for issuing a proclamation that April is Accomplice Heritage Month.

“It’s important to ask your self: ‘OK, what heritage is that?’ That heritage is considered one of white supremacy, the correct to enslave human beings for financial achieve,” mentioned Mary Jane Meadows.

Each Mississippi governor since Republican Kirk Fordice within the Nineties has issued a proclamation of April as Accomplice Heritage Month, and Reeves mentioned April 13 that he “didn’t assume this was the yr to cease doing it.”

Daniel Jenkins of Tupelo mentioned he was protesting Monday as a result of, as a Black man, he doesn’t subscribe to the Accomplice observances. Jenkins sees them as enduring indicators of systemic racism, and urged others to hitch the struggle towards them.

Celebrating Accomplice holidays is contradictory after strikes away from different Outdated South symbols, mentioned Jennifer Lindsey, an legal professional in Tupelo. In 2020, Mississippi legislators retired the final state flag within the U.S. that prominently featured the Accomplice battle emblem.

“We modified the flag, however we maintain on to issues like this,” Lindsey mentioned. “There is no such thing as a memorial day or observance of slaves that died in bondage, but we rejoice those that fought to maintain such an establishment alive.”

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