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Friend, In several states across the South, April is designated Confederate History Month. The holiday honors a dishonorable past and justifies a legacy of white supremacy that survives to this day. The Confederacy’s legacy of brutality and racial subjugation must always be remembered – but it should never be celebrated. The continued observation of Confederate History Month gives modern-day Confederate sympathizers a platform to share harmful disinformation about the Confederacy and perpetuate racial animosity. In Georgia, the Sons of Confederate Veterans were granted a permit to hold their Confederate Memorial Day event on April 30 at Stone Mountain park. That’s why it’s important that we recognize the courageous activists fighting back and working towards the removal of the thousands of public Confederate monuments and symbols this month and always. Communities are coming together to create more inclusive public spaces that reflect liberation, not oppression. Although over 2,000 Confederate memorials still loom over the United States and its territories, since the Charleston church massacre in 2015, activists have successfully renamed, relocated and removed 377 of them. This admirable progress draws from the long history of Black activism contesting Confederate memorials. Despite the passage of draconian preservation laws over the past decade, communities have found creative ways to remove symbols of hate from public spaces. In South Carolina, legislators are proposing to eliminate the state's Confederate Memorial Day. You can learn more about public Confederate monuments in your state and how communities are fighting for their removal in the SPLC’s third edition of Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy. Until every state ceases to declare a Confederate History Month, we must condemn this celebration that reveres a history of racial brutality and sedition that frays the fabric of our communities. We must also uplift the contributions of those fighting to end public symbols commemorating the cruelty of the Confederacy. Our hope is that, just as states have begun removing monuments, they will end this designation and begin allowing our communities to heal. Sincerely, Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center |
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