These Few Celebrate Confederate Memorial Day in Las Vegas

Confederate Memorial Day, sometimes also called Confederate Heroes Day or Confederate Decoration Day, is not a federal holiday. Instead, it is celebrated in various states of the southeastern United States. State employees in Mississippi have today off to observe Confederate Memorial Day, those in Nevada have no such option legally.

In Georgia the day has been called “State Holiday” since 2015, when Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee’s birthday were struck from the state calendar. The state holiday list says the official holiday is April 26 but will be observed this year on Monday, April 24.

Confederate Memorial Day was established after the Civil War to remember the hundreds of thousands soldiers who died fighting for the South. Modern observation of Confederate Memorial Day is much the same as it was just after the end of the Civil War. It’s likely that far fewer people attend some of the events than they once did. In fact, many people who live in the southern states do not realize that Confederate Memorial Day exists. For those who know about the holiday it is an important part of the
calendar.

In Nevada there are two camps of the “Sons of Confederate Veterans,” an “independent organization that supports the protection and preservation of Confederate heritage.” They act as a pseudo-military, with commands, ranks and often wear grey civil war uniforms. Only those who can prove they are related to a member of the Confederate Army can join.

A new Southern Poverty Law Center report identifies “at least 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy”—monuments, statues, schools named after Jefferson Davis, etc.—in public spaces across the country. Contra the common argument that Confederate tributes are a celebration of ‘heritage” rather than white supremacy, the SPLC’s press release notes that “the creation of Confederate displays spiked at the beginning of the Jim Crow era and again in response to the civil rights movement.”

Georgia state representative Tommy Benton argues that not only is Confederate Memorial Day not racist  Benton, a Republican, argues the Civil War was not fought over slavery. Most troubling, however, is Benton’s assertion the Klu Klux Klan was “not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order.”