Confederate holidays have been in KY law for nearly 100 years. This bill would change that.
Kentucky was a neutral state in the Civil War, with the majority of people fighting for the union, but the state’s list of official holidays has celebrated Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Confederate Memorial Day for nearly 100 years.
This year, Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville, hopes to change that.
Miller has filed HB 246, which would strike Robert E. Lee Day (January 19), Confederate Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis Day (June 3). The bill would also remove one holiday not connected to the Civil War: Franklin D. Roosevelt Day (January 30).
Miller said he couldn’t find any evidence of official celebrations for any of the holidays.
“I think it’s time that we take a hard look at some of the public holidays we have and I know there’s been talk in the past to modernize our holiday list,” Miller, who is a self described “history buff” and a member of several historical societies.
The likely most controversial step would be to remove the Confederate holidays from the books. Robert E. Lee day was added to the books in 1926, Confederate Memorial Day in 1932 and Jefferson Davis Day in 1948 according to the history of the statute.
There has been a push in recent years to reexamine Kentucky’s relationship to confederate monuments.
In 2017, then Lexington Mayor Jim Gray ordered the removal of statues of two men involved in the confederacy, moving them from downtown to the Lexington Cemetery. A statue of Jefferson Davis still sits in the rotunda of the capitol, steps away from Miller’s seat in the House of Representatives. In 2018, a plaque calling Davis a “patriot, hero, statesman” was removed from the statue.
Miller said he wants the focus to be on remembering civil war battles, instead of holidays celebrating one side in the war.
“To me, it’s an inappropriate recognition in statute,” Miller said. “I’m not trying to destroy history, erase history, but I think we need to focus on the important thing which is the men who fought and died on both sides.”
Miller’s bill adds six days of “remembrance and honor”: Battle of Blue Licks Day (August 19), Statehood Day (June 1), Battle of Mill Springs Day (January 19), Battle of Richmond Day (August 30), Battle of Munfordville Day (September 17) and Battle of Perryville Day (October 8).
The Battle of Blue Licks was the largest battle of the American Revolution fought in Kentucky. The other four battles were the battles in Kentucky in the Civil War with the highest casualty count.
“There’s a lot of battles and skirmishes in Kentucky and I just picked the four biggest ones,” Miller said.
But also scrapped in the bill is former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1946, the year after Roosevelt died, the Kentucky General Assembly added his birthday to the list of holidays, saying “our late President Franklin D. Roosevelt will go down in history as one of the great Presidents of this Nation, and it is fitting and proper that his birthday be recognized as a public holiday.”
Well it might not have worked out that way. Miller said Kentucky is the only state that still has a Franklin D. Roosevelt Day on the books — not even Roosevelt’s home state of New York recognizes the holiday.
When asked if that means Roosevelt isn’t one of the great presidents in the nation, Miller didn’t bite.
“It just means that we don’t need a public holiday in Kentucky for him.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 3:35 PM.
