A New Orleans lawmaker has filed legislation to remove Robert E. Lee Day and Confederate Memorial Day from the list of approved state holidays.
If you were surprised to find out those two holidays were still on the state calendar, you aren’t the only one. State Representative Matthew Willard told WWL he was shocked to verify those were still around in statute.
“I even know that some of my colleagues in the Legislature were unaware of these state holidays,” said Willard.
Even though those two holidays are not functionally observed these days, and no state worker is taking the day off on Confederate Memorial Day, they’ve never been formally removed from the statute.
From statues to street signs there’s been a nationwide reckoning with the legacy of the Confederacy in recent years. A strong majority of Americans polled reported feeling that Confederate iconography was racist, and as recently as two years ago a slim majority of Southerns said the same according to Forbes. Despite that shift in opinion on the Confederacy Willard still expects to get a good deal of pushback in the coming Legislative session.
“It’s really a stain of our legacy in Louisiana to still have these are holidays,” said Willard. “Individuals like that and holidays like that really set us back in history to a time where we had this existential crisis where we had people who were enslaved.”
Willard warned that if these holidays were not removed there could be economic consequences should a prospective business owner from another part of the country discover the holidays still exist.
“I just don’t think any business in their right mind would say this is a good move for us to move to a state that is still stuck in the 1800s,” said Willard.
The session begins on March 14th.
