April 28, 2025
Former Gov. Nathan Deal eliminated Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia after the Charleston 9 Massacre
Did you know April 26 is Confederate Memorial Day? If not, pay attention to some of the states that still celebrate the holiday honoring Confederate soldiers, Savannah Morning News reported.
Confederate Memorial Day was established in Georgia in 1866, commemorating the deaths of Confederate soldiers on the first anniversary of the day that Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Union Gen. William Sherman at Bennett Place, North Carolina. History says some of the Confederacy saw the negotiation as the end of the Civil War since Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to the former president Gen. Ulysses S. Grant just two weeks prior.
The commemoration was an official holiday in the Peach State until 2015 when former Gov. Nathan Deal eliminated it — and Robert E. Lee’s birthday — from the state calendar after the tragic shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, taking the lives of nine Black people who were praying with the shooter. The holiday spread to a number of other Confederate states, with some changing the dates to identify with something more locally significant.
In Alabama, Confederate Memorial Day is recognized on April 28. States like South Carolina celebrate on May 9 and in Texas, the celebration is known as Confederate Heroes’ Day on January 19.
Mississippi recognizes April 28 to commemorate the holiday. However, lawmakers have since pushed back on why the celebration should be scrapped all together. Sen. Derrick Simmons, representing the state’s 12th District, labeled the commemoration as racist and “awful for Mississippians,” as public offices close and flags are lowered. “Celebrating Confederate Memorial Day is not only racist but is bad policy, bad governance and a deep stain on the values we claim to uphold today,” the senator wrote in an Mississippi Today op-ed.
After highlighting Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens declaring the Confederacy was founded upon “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man” during his “Cornerstone Speech,” Simmons says honoring such a cause is “indefensible.” “It is an insult to every citizen who believes in equality and freedom, and it is a cruel slap in the face to Black Americans, whose ancestors endured the horrors of slavery and generations of systemic discrimination that followed,” he continued.
Before and after the 2020 death of George Floyd, sparking the Black Lives Matter movement, similar sentiments were acted on by removing several Confederate statues across the country. In Georgia, one outside Decatur was removed and replaced with a statue honoring the late Rep. John Lewis. Simmons says he will continue to replace Confederate Memorial Day with Juneteenth on June 19, as the confederate state does not recognize it as a state holiday despite former President Joe Biden mandating it as a federal holiday in 2021.
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