State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) is calling for the end of state support of holidays commemorating Confederate history on Friday, riding the cultural currents created across the country after psychopath Dylann Roof killed nine black church worshippers in a Charleston, S.C. church two weeks ago.
Roof wore the Confederate battle flag while disseminating his rabidly racist manifesto on Facebook and other social media accounts before initiating the senseless carnage at the historic Emmanuel AME Church.
Fort said during a news conference at the state capital in Atlanta that he is drafting legislation to prevent any Confederate holidays in Georgia. The state celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on a date determined by the governor to mark the end of the Civil War in Georgia and Confederate History Month.
Fort is also joining the Georgia Department of Revenue in demanding the eliminating a specialty license plate featuring the Confederate battle flag for Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Deal, a Republican, said earlier this week that he will support a redesign of the plate, after initially telling reporters he wouldn’t urge lawmakers to make any changes.
“He needs to take a cue from some of his Republican governors in other states who are calling for the elimination of Confederate symbols, state-authorized Confederate symbols,” Fort said. “If you’re a private citizen and you want to have a shrine to the Confederacy in your home or your backyard and go pray to it every night, that’s your business. But the state of Georgia should not be in the business of authorizing by deed or action the Confederacy, which is such a painful, painful part of the history of the South and this country.”
Last week, South Carolina’s Gov. Nikki Haley headed a bipartisan press conference asking citizens to vote out the Confederate battle flag from the state house grounds in Columbia, S.C.
Others have joined the Haley. Alabama’s Gov. Robert Bentley made hardly any noise as he had four Confederate flags removed from the Capitol grounds. Governors in several other states have called for the end of license plates similar to Georgia’s.
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