LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An effort to end Arkansas’ practice of commemorating Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on the same day failed again before a legislative panel Wednesday, despite supporters’ arguments that the combined holiday hurts the state’s image.
The House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee rejected the bill to remove Lee from the state holiday honoring King on a 7-10 vote. Arkansas is one of three states to jointly celebrate the two men on the third Monday in January.
“This bill is important to improve the image of our state and perceptions about our state around the nation and around the world,” said Republican Rep. Nate Bell of Mena, who sponsored the proposal. “The fact we’re one of three states that continue to celebrate a combined holiday is regularly used as proof that we’re somehow backward, racist, et cetera.”
The proposal, which failed before the same panel last month, called for designating Nov. 30 as “Patrick Cleburne – Robert E. Lee Southern Heritage Day,” a state memorial day but not a legal holiday. Cleburne was a Confederate general who lived in east Arkansas. It also called for eliminating June 3 as a state memorial day honoring former Confederacy President Jefferson Davis.
Former state Economic Development Commission director Grant Tennille told lawmakers that the dual holiday hurts the state’s efforts to attract businesses.
“It’s time for us to acknowledge that there are people on the planet who see the dual observance of this holiday as a tremendous slight,” he said.
But opponents of the measure said there was no proof Arkansas had lost any economic development deals because of the King-Lee holiday, and said the proposal would diminish the state’s heritage. Robert Edwards, commander of the Arkansas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, called separating the holidays “racist.”
“We’re never going to drive out hate until we can find a point in time that we can celebrate the accomplishments of two great American heroes with different colors,” Edwards said.
Republican Rep. Josh Miller of Heber Springs, who voted against the measure, questioned the need for separating the holidays.
“To me, I think it’s pretty neat that we in the state of Arkansas are able to peacefully and happily celebrate both men on the same day,” Miller said.
The vote followed an hourlong hearing that grew testy at times. John Crain, a white Mountain Home lawyer who spoke against the legislation, at one point said he was “proud to call my colored brothers my brothers.”
Democratic Rep. John Walker of Little Rock, a civil rights attorney, bristled at Crain’s remark.
“Having referenced to persons of my race as colored brothers is a relic of slavery,” Walker, who is black, told Crain. “It’s insulting.”
The vote effectively kills Bell’s proposal, but not the effort to separate the holidays. Democratic Rep. Fred Love of Little Rock said he planned to present his proposal to remove Lee from the King holiday to the same panel. Unlike Bell’s proposal, Love’s would not create a separate memorial day for Lee.
“It’s about putting the past in the past,” Love said. “The war that Robert E. Lee fought pretty much, the Confederates lost. So why would we continue to celebrate a part of history that’s a dark part of American history? We need to be celebrating the dream Martin Luther King had.”
