Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Revive 'Confederate Memorial Day' In Georgia

ATLANTA, GA — As Georgia lawmakers wind through the busy legislative season, a familiar measure has popped up for consideration in the House.

House Resolution 644, which would formally recognize April 26 as Confederate Memorial Day, was introduced this week by Republican Rep. Tommy Benton of Jefferson.

Benton has long defended the state's Confederate heritage and has introduced bills in previous years to honor the monument of Confederate generals carved into Stone Mountain and statues of Civil War heroes who fought for the South.

The new bill, which is not expected to gain serious support, neglects to mention "slavery" or even the "Civil War." Instead, the bill's language focuses on "a four-year struggle for states' rights, individual freedom, and local governmental control, which they believed to be right and just."

Evidently, the measure was inspired by President Trump's win in November.

"We just elected a president that said he was tired of political correctness. And so that was the reason that we were looking to introduce the resolution," Benton told WABE. “We think that our heritage is just as important as everybody else’s.”

Confederate Memorial Day — the fourth Monday in April — was a thing in Georgia for years until Gov. Nathan Deal slowly distanced the state from it, stripping the title in the wake of the Charleston massacre in favor of the generic "State Holiday."

The Legislative Black Caucus held a news conference Friday condemning the legislation.

In a statement earlier this week, the group said: "The GLBC has worked for years in a bipartisan effort to take the confederate symbol out of our state flag. We have come far in that notion in hopes that Confederate History Month does not insight hatred or bigotry throughout the state of Georgia."

Benton made national headlines in early 2016 when he said that the Ku Klux Klan “made a lot of people straighten up.” Last year, he pulled three bills he was sponsoring from the House because of the "negative perception" his comments had caused.

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