Ga.’s Confederate Heritage Month — and a civil rights museum?
May 5, 2009 at 11:27 am by Thomas Wheatley in News
Imagine that. Somewhere in the legislative process, a piece of chest-thumping Dixieland legislation about the Civil War morphed into — a bill about Civil Rights?
Last week, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a bill sponsored by state Sen. John Bulloch, R-Ochlochknee, that designates April as “Confederate Heritage and History Month” — a 30-day tribute to one of the country’s darkest periods and the first holiday of its kind in the country. I know, you’re shaking your head, saying “Oh, dear God, those mouth-breathing lawmakers are at it again.” Quite understandable if you just look at the name of the monthlong holiday.
But the actual language of the bill that ultimately passed might surprise you. And for all the negative publicity the bill had the potential to attract (and oddly enough didn’t), you wonder why lawmakers decided not to point out an olive branch — designating a Savannah museum as an “official Georgia historical civil rights museum” — that was inserted into the bill.
First, let’s take a look at the bill when it was first introduced:
Here are some excerpts of the original bill:
(2) Some of Georgia’s greatest statesmen, including Robert Toombs, Benjamin Harvey Hill, and Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, served the Confederate government in high positions;
Good to know!
(4) Georgians James Longstreet and John Brown Gordon were prominent Confederate generals;
Neat!
(5) Many of the war’s prominent battles were fought in Georgia, including Chickamauga, Resaca, Kennesaw, the siege of Atlanta, and Jonesboro. Much of Georgia was laid waste during Sherman’s march to the sea and Georgians of all classes and every profession gave generously and sacrificed much to the Confederacy and its cause. It is the most momentous period in the history of the South and our state since the American Revolution and deserves official honors and recognition; and
OK.
(b) The month of April of each year is hereby designated as Confederate History and Heritage Month and shall be set aside to honor, observe, and celebrate the Confederate States of America, its history, those who served in its armed forces and government, and all those millions of its citizens of various races and ethnic groups and religions who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause of Southern Independence from its founding on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, until the Confederate ship CSS Shenandoah sailed into Liverpool Harbor and surrendered to British authorities on November 6, 1865.
Slavery.
(c) Officials and departments of state, county, and municipal governments, boards of education, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, businesses, and all citizens are encouraged to participate in programs, displays, and activities that commemorate and honor our shared history and cultural inheritance throughout each April during Confederate History and Heritage Month.
No thanks.
(e) The Civil War Commission is encouraged to develop a curriculum that may be used to instruct and inform students in elementary and secondary schools and in colleges and universities about Georgia’s Confederate heritage and history during Confederate History and Heritage Month. The Civil War Commission is also encouraged to develop any information, advertisements, press releases, and other information relative to Confederate History and Heritage Month and to distribute the same to state and local governments, the public, and the media.”
Aren’t these educational materials and information already available in the form of coozies, mesh hats, and oversized t-shirts in fine convenience stores along I-75 South?
So there you have it. Now, let’s take a look at the bill after the General Assembly was finished with it.
To amend Chapter 4 of Title 1 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to holidays and observances, so as to create Confederate Heritage and History Month; to provide for legislative findings; to encourage observances and celebrations of Confederate Heritage and History Month; to provide for statutory construction; to amend Article 3 of Chapter 3 of Title 50, relating to other state symbols, so as to provide that the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum shall be an official state historical civil rights museum; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.
(Emphasis added.) Wow, the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum in Savannah. How’d that sneak in there?
WHEREAS, Savannah has a long and storied role in the civil rights movement, beginning with a meeting between General Sherman and Secretary of War Stanton and twelve Black leaders on January 12, 1865, to discuss the matter of emancipation; and
OK, talking about working together here. That’s different.
WHEREAS, the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum, recently named “Georgia’s Best New History Museum” by the Georgia Journal, is named in honor of the late Dr. Ralph Mark Gilbert. The father of Savannah’s modern day Civil Rights Movement and fearless National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leader was known for much more than his outspoken campaigns for civil rights. He was a nationally known orator, pulpiteer, and playwright, producing religious dramas, known as passion plays, throughout the country; and
The legislation goes on to give a short biography of Gilbert and a description of the museum. It then says the building will hereafter be recognized as an “official state historical civil rights museum.”
All the stuff about great Georgia statesmen, Confederate generals, the state getting gutted during the Civil War? Gone. Poof. Peace. Institutions are still encouraged to participate in the month’s activities, which at this point, are still being decided.
How the bill changed from this to that comes down to politics. A Gold Dome insider tells us the Gilbert museum language was inserted into the bill — and all the trumpeting of our Confederate forefathers removed — when the Confederate legislation appeared to be waving the white flag, covered in leeches, addicted to morphine and struggling to pass the finish line. We’re told the language about the museum — pulled from another bill that failed to pass — was added on the floor in the closing hours of the legislative session.
Come time for Bulloch to issue a press release announcing this groundbreaking achievement — a signed bill that comes with no funding or guarantees of anything, just a lot of “encouraging” and “designating” — they decided to make no mention of the civil rights’ museum designation.
Note there was also no outcry by opponents of the legislation. We guess everyone got what they wanted out of this bill?
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
May 5th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
A few thoughts on the bill and its evolution:
“All the stuff about great Georgia statesmen, Confederate generals, the state getting gutted during the Civil War? Gone. Poof.”
That wasn’t a last-minute change or compromise. That language was already stripped from the bill when it passed the Senate Rules Committee on March 5 and when the Senate initially passed it on March 12.
It was then the House that tacked on the ‘Official State Historical Civil Rights Museum’ language from Lester Jackson’s failed bill. And the House didn’t even first read the bill until March 17.
So despite what the insider said, all of the “trumpeting of our Confederate forefathers” was removed at least two weeks before the museum language was added.
And as much as I’d like to believe the bill was struggling to pass the House, its 48-2 victory in the Senate doesn’t indicate much legislative opposition. Well before the museum language was added, Ronald Ramsey and Kasim Reed were the only two Senators to vote against the bill. Its 146-10 passage of the House, with the added museum language, is actually a slightly *higher* opposition percentage.
(I’d like to toot the horn of my Rep, Mike Jacobs, for being the only Republican in either house to vote against the bill.)
I think it’s also worth stressing that the only thing the bill, as passed, does with regard to the museum is to give it a designation. The museum already exists. It is already named for Ralph Mark Gilbert. The bill does not provide new funding for the museum. It merely creates OCGA 50-3-85, designating the museum as “an official Georgia historical civil rights museum.”
And here’s something downright strange: the bill as passed and signed specifically says “an official Georgia…museum.” “An,” not “the.” The failed bill said “the.” So the museum is being given an official status (on par with grits being the official state prepared food, or square dancing the official state folk dance), but not a singular one.
Meanwhile, ‘Confederate Heritage & History Month’ becomes Georgia’s only third official month-long holiday. February is both American History Month and Georgia History Month (neither of which needed an ad hoc ‘tourism’ rationale). And now April is Confederate Heritage & History Month. It’s a fairly unique honor, certainly not on par with the non-official Black History Month, as Senator Bulloch liked to compare it to.
Finally, whatever merit there may be in designating the Savannah museum as ‘an official state civil rights museum,’ that doesn’t at all excuse the simultaneous insertion into state law of a month-long holiday to “honor, observe and celebrate the Confederate States of America” and its cause. Not to study the era and the war, or to reflect on the conflict and the lessons we can take from it, but to specifically honor and celebrate the CSA itself.
Georgia is, sadly, the first state in the Union to actually pass legislation permanently so designating April this way.
It may only be a symbolic matter, but symbols do matter. Georgia now looks to the rest of the nation as a state willing to celebrate its most bold attempt to protect and preserve the institution of slavery. And the thought that potential dissenters may have had their silence purchased at the cost of the designation of merely “an official…museum” doesn’t reflect kindly on anyone other than those who actually stood firm against SB 27.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Great analysis, Loren! I’m glad I voted for you twice.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
thank you for you intolerance. you have shown that you do not know nor do you wish to understand the real history of this era. your bigotry and hatred is surely showing. sad sad sad that you must attack others out of your own ignorance. i hope that one day we have a society that “really is” tolerant of each other and trys to understand those we disagree with. we DAMN sure don’t have it now. this is “true intolerance and bigotry”
May 6th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Uh-oh! Looks like Clark Williams has a bad case of the whine flu.
May 7th, 2009 at 12:12 am
I believe Loren understands, just completely disagrees with that sentiment.