Arkansas bill to end dual Lee-King day heads to final vote
LITTLE ROCK — A House panel endorsed an effort Tuesday to end Arkansas’ dual holiday honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., sending the proposal to its final vote at the urging of the state’s Republican governor.
The House Education Committee advanced by a voice vote the proposal to remove Lee from the state holiday in January honoring King. Only two other states, Mississippi and Alabama, commemorate the men on the same day.
Hutchinson told lawmakers King deserves the day to himself and the move was needed to help improve Arkansas’ image, noting the attention Arkansas has received for the dual holiday in recent years.
“I would like to think this is important enough that it is a healing moment for our state, I think it is a unifying moment for our state between the minority community and others,” Hutchinson told the panel.
The proposal would set aside the second Saturday in October as a state memorial day, not a holiday, to honor Lee with a gubernatorial proclamation. The bill also calls for the state to expand what’s taught in schools about the Civil War and civil rights.
Opponents of the measure said the bill belittles the state’s Confederate heritage by not giving Lee his own holiday.
“It is not a division of holidays. It is the elimination of Robert E. Lee (day) and separate is not equal,” said Robert Edwards, commander of the Arkansas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Some lawmakers on the panel also questioned the need for the move. Republican Rep. Jana Della Rosa, who was one of the votes against the measure, called the proposal divisive. Della Rosa had filed a competing bill to move Lee to the state and federal holiday in February honoring George Washington, but said she was withdrawing it.
“Not one person has asked me to do this, and I’ve gotten tons of emails asking me not to do this,” she said.
Both Lee and King were born in January. Arkansas has had a holiday in honor of Lee since 1947 and one for King since 1983. That year, agencies required state employees to choose which two holidays they wanted off: King’s birthday on Jan. 15, Lee’s birthday on Jan. 19 or the employee’s birthday. In 1985, the Legislature voted to combine holidays.
A similar effort to remove Lee from the King holiday repeatedly failed before a House committee two years ago. Hutchinson last year said he would urge the Legislature to pass the measure.
Rizelle Aaron, the head of the Arkansas NAACP, said commemorating Lee on the King holiday is a painful reminder for blacks in the state of slavery’s legacy.
“To us, Robert E. Lee and Dr. King being celebrated on the same day is a reminder of that torture, it’s a reminder of that slavery, it’s a reminder of the things that our ancestors and forefathers suffered at the hands of what was considered a legal act or law at that particular time,” Aaron said.