Simmons, Blount propose repealing Confederate Memorial Day and proposing Juneteenth as a state holiday.
State Senator Derrick Simmons announced that he and fellow Democratic State Senator David Blount plan to propose legislation in the 2022 legislative session to repeal Confederate Memorial Day in Mississippi and replace it with Juneteenth.
Sen. Simmons, the Senate Minority Leader, took to Twitter on Friday to make the announcement that legislation would be coming out to do away with the Confederate Memorial Day. He instead wants to recognize Juneteenth as a Mississippi state holiday.
https://twitter.com/SenDTSimmons/status/1405944008619302920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Simmons noted that Sen. Blount would also be sponsoring the legislation.
“With Congress and President Biden agreeing on Juneteenth as a national holiday, now is the time for us to cleanup even more of Mississippi’s tarnished past by shedding other ties to the confederacy,” said Simmons.
On Thursday, President Biden signed a bill from Congress to designate June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day. The bill passed in the House 415-14 and unanimously in the Senate. All of the Mississippi federal delegation voted in favor of the act.
“Senator Derrick Simmons and I will be sponsoring legislation next year to replace the state holiday Confederate Memorial Day with the new federal holiday Juneteenth. We will be reaching out to our colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, in support of this effort,” said Blount.
RELATED: Mississippi delegation votes to designate June 19 as “Juneteenth National Independence Day”
The day recognizes the date in 1865 when federal troops informed Texas that slaves were free by then-President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which occurred two years earlier.
Sarah Ulmer
