[Rather than celebrate this milestone of multiracial democracy,
our leaders conspicuously ignore the occasion ]
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THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR ENDED ON THIS DAY. IT SHOULD BE A NATIONAL
HOLIDAY  
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Steve Phillips
April 9, 2023
Guardian
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_ Rather than celebrate this milestone of multiracial democracy, our
leaders conspicuously ignore the occasion _

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Today should be a national holiday in the United States, but the wrong
people are celebrating. On this day in 1865, Confederate Gen Robert E
Lee surrendered to Union forces – marking the effective defeat of
the Confederacy and the triumph of those who opposed the idea that
this should be a white nationalist nation where Black bodies could be
bought and sold on the open market. Yet rather than celebrate this
seminal milestone in defending and creating a multiracial democracy,
the country’s leaders ignore the occasion, creating a vacuum into
which the champions of white nationalism happily goose-step.

Boiled down to its essence, the civil war began because the
presidential candidate sympathetic to African Americans, Abraham
Lincoln, won the election of 1860, and the losing side refused to
accept the election results (sound familiar?). That defiance of
democracy led to 11 states seceding from the Union and forming the
Confederacy, which was founded, in the words
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Confederate vice-president Alexander Stephens, “upon the great truth
that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery,
subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal
condition”. The civil war was a truly existential conflict that
raged for four years of killing and carnage that resulted in
the deaths of 2% of the country’s residents
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the equivalent of 7 million people, based on today’s population.

The day not only recalls the defeat of the white supremacists, but the
beginning of the first faltering steps towards making the country a
multiracial democracy. During Reconstruction, laws were passed, land
divided and institutions created to foster education and public health
for people of all racial backgrounds. In the words
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the writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, “the years directly after slavery
saw the greatest expansion of human and civil rights this nation would
ever see”.

Introducing a bill in Congress will force members to go on record to
choose a side between white nationalism and multiracial democracy

One would think that such a landmark achievement would be annually
remembered, recognized and cherished. But one would be wrong. It is in
fact the Confederates and their ideological and genealogical heirs who
regularly nurture the memories of those who fought for legalized white
supremacy within our borders.

Organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons
of Confederate Veterans promoted and defended the creation of hundreds
of monuments to Confederate leaders across the country and continue to
do so to this day. (You can buy shot glasses, belt buckles and bars
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Hollywood showered huge sums of money on creating films such as The
Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind that sanitized mass murder
and human bondage. To this day, Texas offers a paid holiday to state
employees so that they can celebrate Confederate Heroes Day
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honor the white supremacists Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee.

For the health of our democracy, the education of our children, and
the elevation of the vision and values that this is a nation where
people of all racial backgrounds are cherished, we should launch a
movement from coast to coast to make 9 April a holiday.

There is a reason that the rallying cry about the Holocaust is
“never forget”. People around the world recognize the importance
of preserving the memory of one of the great atrocities in the history
of humanity so that it doesn’t occur again. Nazism is predicated on
the same kinds of white supremacist beliefs that precipitated the
civil war, and an institutionalized reminder of the threat and defeat
of that threat will help create guardrails to defend the democracy in
the future.

Modern-day Confederates are well aware of the importance of what
children are taught about this country’s racial history and
contemporary realities. That is why leaders in former slaveholding
states such as Florida, Virginia and Texas have passed legislation and
taken aggressive action to whitewash their curricula through attacks
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so-called critical race theory.

Public support for racial justice requires an understanding and
appreciation of the persistence and prevalence of racial injustice.
Formalizing the recognition of what the civil war was, which side won,
and where we currently stand will deepen young people’s
understanding and commitment to continuing the vigilance needed to
foster racial justice and equality.

As much as the holiday itself, the debate over establishing it will
educate the country and affirm our values. We don’t have to wait for
a divided Congress to act. School boards, city councils, boards of
supervisors, and state legislatures can all pass resolutions marking
the occasion and declaring a local holiday, thereby creating momentum
for a federal holiday. And introducing a bill in Congress will force
members to go on record, creating a basis for ads and campaign
materials challenging voters to choose a side between white
nationalism and multiracial democracy.

The only reason not to proceed is a lack of courage – and bad math
skills. The ideological descendants of the Confederacy will get mad,
no question; but they are not the majority. Forcing people to choose
will reveal that the majority want a multiracial democracy, and if
that is in fact the case let’s set aside 9 April as a day of
national celebration.

Steve Phillips [[link removed]] is
the founder of Democracy in Color and a Guardian US columnist. He is
the author of How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial
Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good
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* US Civil War
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* History
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* democracy
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