Today is a holiday in Alabama. Guess what it is for?
Jefferson Davis’s birthday. Yep! You heard me correctly.
Alabama still observes THREE confederate holidays
1. MLK day in Alabama is a JOINT holiday. It is declared as MLK day AND Robert E Lee’s birthday. That’s right. Depending on who you ask they will tell you who they are celebrating. It’s honestly disgusting.
2. Confederate Memorial Day. It is Celebrated the last Monday of April each year. According to the state, The purpose of this holiday is to observe all the fallen soldiers and what they fought for. Again. Disgusting.
3. Jefferson Davis’s birthday. Always the first Monday in June. The leader of the confederacy. So a day to honor his legacy. Again disgusting.
The reason you don’t hear such an outcry from people here is for several reasons. Mainly two reasons. One being the voices of those against the celebration of such horrible people are suppressed and not listened to or ignored. The other being the fact that these are in fact days off work for a majority of the state and you can choose NOT to celebrate as I do. I ignore the holidays except for MLK which I have celebrated every year as so.
Let’s dive deeper into it though. Did you know Alabama recently adopted a Rosa Parks holiday? Yea but what you don’t know is that it is a commemorative holiday. Meaning there is no day off work. It actually says “you may choose to honor and celebrate on this day as you wish”. Why couldn’t we replace one of the racist holidays with a day honoring her instead? Makes perfect sense to me.
Montgomery, Alabama has what we call the big 4. Meaning there are 4 major public schools. Want to know the names of them?
- Robert E Lee high school
- Jefferson Davis high school
- Sindey Lanier high school
- George Washington Carver high school
One out of Four schools is named after a black person. All four of these schools are predominantly minority because many white parents CHOSE to put their children in private schools. It is still very segregated. I was thankful to go to a diverse public school in a surrounding county. It allowed me to make friendships with people who did not look like me. I am thankful for that opportunity that my parents provided me to not grow up in a typical racist household in central Alabama.
Long story short. Racism is not even close to “being fixed”. I try to do better every day. I am more outspoken now than when I was younger. I am not going to be silent anymore. Privately, I work on and urge my family and friends to do better. I do not laugh off racist jabs. I confront them head on. Sure I’ve lost social media friends over me speaking up but so be it.
More has to be done.
Comments
Long story short. Racism is not even close to “being fixed”. I try to do better every day. I am more outspoken now than when I was younger. I am not going to be silent anymore. Privately, I work on and urge my family and friends to do better. I do not laugh off racist jabs. I confront them head on. Sure I’ve lost social media friends over me speaking up but so be it.
I mean I generally knew Alabama was...not exactly a progressive state, but that's like, horrifying. I am glad you see all of this though and you speak your mind against it.
More has to be done.