Confederate Heroes Day is celebrated on Jan. 19. The holiday commemorates the lives of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee as well as soldiers who died fighting the Union during the Civil War. Texas used to separately celebrate the birthdays of Davis and Lee, but consolidated them in 1973 into Confederate Heroes Day.
"When we talk about what Confederate Heroes Day is, it is a remembrance of a horrible past," state Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, said at a press conference surrounded by other lawmakers. "A past that has done irreparable damage to many of the residents of the state of Texas."
It is time to stop commemorating this ugly chapter in U.S. history. Most Confederate monuments were erected in reaction to the Civil Rights movement in an attempt to intimidate Blacks and their white allies. Honoring those who fought to defend the evil of slavery is in poor taste, and a blot on our country. It is time to put this in our past and move on.
