The Confederate Flag Memorial Day Will Not Be A State Holiday In Georgia

The Confederate Flag Memorial Day Will Not Be
 A State Holiday In Georgia 

BHR Hollywood Reports...........Confederate Memorial Day has been struck from Georgia’s official 2016 state holiday calendar. So has Robert E. Lee’s birthday.

Both have quietly been replaced with the more neutral term "state holiday."

The change was reflected in emails from Gov. Nathan Deal that landed in state employees' inboxes this week.

The 2015 state calendar clearly listed April 27 as the Confederate holiday and Nov. 27 as Lee's birthday (he was actually born in January).

Nathan Deal 

“There will be a state holiday on that day,” Governor Nathan Deal’s spokesman Brian Robinson told Reports.

“Those so inclined can observe Confederate Memorial Day and remember those who died in that conflict.”

Dylann Roof 

Confederate symbols have come under increased scrutiny across the south since Dylann Roof was accused of killing nine people inside Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17th.

Roof was seen in multiple social media posts posing with the Confederate Battle Flag, which led directly to its removal from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds.

The Confederate battle emblem is already gone from Georgia's own flag, but there has been some controversy over whether the state should continue to produce a vanity license plate that displays the symbol.

In a sign of the popularity the symbol still enjoys, hundreds of Confederate battle flag supporters descended on Stone Mountain on Saturday to celebrate what they say is an important symbol of their

Tom Watson

heritage.

Deal has remained mostly silent on the controversies, and the change on Thursday was made without any announcement or fanfare.

It echoed the way the Republican governor had the statue of Tom Watson booted from the state Capitol's grounds in 2013.

 Critics had long called for the removal of the bronze likeness of the one-time populist turned white supremacist who vilified blacks, Catholics and Jews.

 Deal said it was being removed for safety reasons because the steps near the statue were in disrepair. Watson was removed unceremoniously during a state holiday when few were around to see.

Georgia NAACP President Richard Rose called Thursday's calendar change "grudging progress."

"There is absolutely no reason we should be celebrating Confederate Memorial Day," Rose said.

"There is is no Confederate States of America, and there hasn't been for 150 years."