HATEFUL LEGACY: Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves & “Confederate Heritage”
Governor Tate Reeves isn’t the first to declare “Confederate Heritage Month” in Mississippi, and his office is using that as a defense, asserting that every Governor since 1992, both Democrat and Republican, has made a similar announcement.
That doesn’t say much, though, in a state that has only had one Democrat in the Governor’s seat in that three-decade-plus period. In fact, the second-to-last Democrat to lead the state, Ray Mabus, who left office in 1992, is calling out that excuse, saying, “I didn’t do it when I was governor.”
He also noted that the “heritage” associated with the confederacy “is slavery, is treason, and is losing.”
Still, Reeves doesn’t seem too proud of his proclamation. Though he’s declared April to be Confederate Heritage Month, it doesn’t feature prominently on any of his social media feeds, nor his official gubernatorial website’s newsroom.
More prominently, he’s declared April to be child abuse prevention month, the month of the military child, and beef month. Maybe he’s aware that all of those agendas are more universally popular than celebrating a fight to keep slavery intact.
Still, he did sign the proclamation, and the “celebration” and events are being promoted around the state.
For instance, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library is holding events. (Davis was never president of the United States of America; he was the President of the Confederate States, before which he represented Mississippi in the U.S. Senate.) They’re holding an event on the 27th, to honor “the estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers who died during the War Between the States”
Tate is also careful in the wording of his proclamation. In part, it declares:
“It is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation’s past, to gain insight from our mistakes and successes, and to come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us.”
There’s a lot of reaching for plausible deniability in a statement that speaks of appreciating the “heritage” of the Confederacy, while also leaving open whether it’s one of the “mistakes” or “successes.”
The NAACP released a statement saying:
“It seems on brand for the “Not It” Governor of Mississippi, who picks and chooses when and whom he chooses to govern.”
The organization noted that Reeves was on hand and willing to proclaim Confederate Heritage Month, and to expand policing, but absent on the issue of a water crisis in Jackson, for instance.
Watch a former Mississippi governor respond to the current governor’s honoring of “Confederate heritage.”
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves proclaims April ‘Confederate Heritage Month.’
Former MS Gov Ray Mabus @SECNAV75 reacts pic.twitter.com/Gk5HZBe6QH
— Victor Blackwell CNN (@VictorBlackwell) April 20, 2024
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