AP, February 3, 2009
A black state senator is pushing a bill that would require South Carolina cities and counties to give their workers a paid day off for Confederate Memorial Day or lose millions in state funds.
Democratic Sen. Robert Ford’s bill won initial approval from a Senate subcommittee Tuesday. It would force county and municipal governments to follow the schedule of holidays used by the state, which gives workers 12 paid days off, including May 10 to honor Confederate war dead. Mississippi and Alabama also recognize Confederate Memorial Day.
Years ago, Ford said, he pushed a bill to make both that day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day paid holidays. He considered it an effort to help people understand the history of both the civil rights movement and the Confederacy in a state where the Orders of Secession are engraved in marble in the Statehouse lobby, portraits of Confederate generals look down on legislators in their chambers and the Confederate flag flies outside.
“Every municipality and every citizen of South Carolina, should be, well, forced to respect these two days and learn what they can about those two particular parts of our history,” Ford said Tuesday.
In a state steeped in a segregationist past, “there’s no love in this state between black and white basically,” he said. That’s not apparent at the Statehouse, where black and white legislators get along, “but if you go out there in real South Carolina, it’s hatred and I think we can bring our people together.”
Lonnie Randolph, president of the state conference of NAACP branches, objected to that reasoning.
“Here Senator Ford is talking about the importance of race relations by forcing recognition of people who did everything they could to destroy another race—particularly those that look like I do,” Randolph said. “You can’t make dishonor honorable. It’s impossible.”
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Local governments, meanwhile, are seeing green, not race, when it comes to adding holidays to their calendars.
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Greenville County, one of the state’s wealthiest and most populous counties, doesn’t offer the Confederate holiday. The Judiciary Committee said the county would spend $156,900 to add each holiday to its calendar. Much smaller Laurens County would spend $37,080.
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, supports the bill—and holding back chunks of the more than $300 million the state sends local governments each year.
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Original article
(Posted on February 4, 2009)
Comments
Like I said before there has always been a small number of black folks that are decent maybe 3% especially the church going type.
And none of the white legislators have thought of this?
While South Carolina is definitely a deep southern state, it has a legacy of being the more liberal (or rather, less conservative) on race than its counterparts. The reason is that the socio-economics of plantation slavery pre-WBTS in South Carolina was far more plutocratic than the rest of the South. For some reason, the owners of such economic factors, i.e. the cash crop plantations, did not have very much tangible experience with their slaves and (after the WBTS) sharecroppers, so they did not have the same kind of experience that their counterparts in Alabama and Mississippi had. South Carolina was more generous in granting the franchise to blacks than their neighbors, because the plutocrats thought that their sharecroppers would all vote in a bloc for the interests of their boss.
Perhaps this is the reason why the black body politic in SC is slightly less hostile to symbols of Southern Heritage than their analogues in neighboring states.
“Here Senator Ford is talking about the importance of race relations by forcing recognition of people who did everything they could to destroy another race—particularly those that look like I do,”
He and I must have different history books, as I can’t find a single reference in mine to a deliberate attempt at genocide of blacks by the Confederacy.
Let us hope the Palmetto State embraces, and passes, this bill. Our brave Confederate ancestors deserve all the honour we can give them (especially in these troubled times for any who honour the South); I can only wish that my home State of Tennessee would adopt a similar measure.
And, as always, shame on the NAACP for continuing its effort to re-write American history by casting the CSA as villains and hate-mongers.
I believe that is the same McConnell who heads up the CS Hunley archaelogical effort. Good luck to them!
Lonnie Randolph, president of the state conference of NAACP branches, objected to that reasoning.
“Here Senator Ford is talking about the importance of race relations by forcing recognition of people who did everything they could to destroy another race—particularly those that look like I do,” Randolph said. “You can’t make dishonor honorable. It’s impossible.”
Mr. NAACP is a racist and is IRGORANT of the truth! The War Between the States was NOT over slavery. And Lincoln was not the great emancipator either. Lincoln only used the issue of slavery as war propaganda. He needs an education, not the communist indoctrination he has received. Why are most blacks Marxists? WHY?
Sen. Robert Ford a black man that has learned the truth about the War Between the States? Praise the Lord he is in the minority and will be sadly ousted and his life threatened by follow blacks for being a sell out.
However, I think WE all should sent a thank you to Sen. Ford!
Lonnie Randolph of the State NAACP appears would learn the most by Se. Robert Ford’s bill. To try and somehow link the Confederate cause with trying to exterminate Mr. Randolph’s race is amazingly ignorant and should embarrass the NAACP.
Doesn’t Mr. Randolph realize that we are a diverse society and respect for those who believe differently is paramount in importance? It is selfish and intolerant people like Mr. Randolph who undermines good relations between people of different colors.
Note the reference to “Orders of Secession.” The ignorant AP reporter and his ignorant AP editor and the ignorant AP copy editor and the ignorant editors that put the AP story in their papers do not know that there is no such thing as “Orders of Secession.” South Carolina and the other seceding states each passed an “Ordinance of Secession.”
be wary of anything like this since this only came about after the blacks got everything they ever wanted and then some so they try to throw out a dogbone to the white dogs to feed off of. this is nothing but a token con appeasement act that is meaningless. people who believe there are such things black conservatives would buy into some gimmick like this.
“While South Carolina is definitely a deep southern state, it has a legacy of being the more liberal (or rather, less conservative) on race than its counterparts” Question Diversity
I’m not sure I can totally agree with that statement. It was South Carolina, after all, that ignited the spark of freedom that lead to the War for Southern independence. In any case, I would say that relations between blacks and whites have always been better in South Carolina than most other Southern States.
I think it’s a good idea.Who cares if Blacks take a day off from work to recognize a long overdue honorable recognition ? We ALL have to recognize MLK Day. So turnabout is fair play.Maybe the less racist Blacks will somehow bother to look into the REAL history of the South. It’s theirs too.
Hey, I like this idea!
Maybe also R. E. Lee, Stonewall, and Forrest could be given as much space combined as is reserved for Tubman in the history books?
My mother is a member of Daughters of Union Vets.
But I think the South was more in the right. I think a holiday is a good idea…and I’m a lifelong Yankee.
BTW had Lincoln not been assassinated, the South very likely would not have been pillaged. Have to give the man some credit.
We can no longer learn anything from “History” books. My daughters book had a couple of paragraphs on WWII (a rather momentous, self inflicted wound on mankind) nothing on the Viet-Nam war or Korea and page after page of MLK!! Gen. Patton said history would be written by the winners (Not sure if he paraphrased or quoted) but it is true.
I agree with SKIP. Our blood would run cold just to browse through so-called “history” books of today. The history of the South and of the Old Southern Confederacy is being rewritten by the enemy so as to demonize the valiant Confederate officers and soldiers, to denounce them as guilty of genocide (a bald-faced lie), and consequently, the usual comparison of these noble souls to the Nazis of WWII. I bitterly resent this defamation of the Confederate Soldiers’ good name. When I see CSA on a man’s tombstone or see the iron Confederate Cross of Honor on a grave, there is something deep within my being that is stirred by my knowing that this was one of thousands of real men who stood together to defend a common cause (and I don’t mean slavery). The day is quickly coming when all White Americans will need to stand together again as these stalwart men did from 1861 to 1865 and long thereafter. Will we be able to pull it off? I hope so, for our sake.
Deo Vindice!!!!
BeenHereTooLong wrote:
Sadly, my friend, I think this country is far too gone for this to happen. If there was any doubt in my mind, it was erased when I read the comments to this story as it appeared on thestate.com, the “premier” newspaper for South Carolina. The comments denigrating the Confederacy and Mr. Ford for proposal the Confederate holiday, left me dumbfounded.
If you cannot get South Carolinians to agree on this issue, what does that say about the rest of the white U.S.?
Referring to the post above by Anonymous at 4:47 PM on Feb. 9:
I must agree with you, upon deeper reflection upon my own remarks. We White Americans don’t have enough fight left in us to do anything about the destruction of the USA. Maybe I once thought that, when backed into a corner with nowhere to go, beaten and abused, we’d at least fight back from sheer fright getting the adrenalin going, but I’ve given up on that silly hope also. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the “union.” If White South Carolinians of today view their ancestors with such contempt, then perhaps we’re not worth saving. Of course, the ignorance of younger Whites - that would permit them to join the rabble that condemn the Confederacy - is symbolic of the dumbing down of America brought about by left-wingers to make underachievers (translation: non-Whites) feel good about their “intelligence.”
