When the City of Biloxi Twitter account decided to mention that municipal offices were going to be closed today because of “Great Americans Day” instead of Martin Luther King Jr. day, people got pissed. So pissed that you cannot see the tweet anymore as the city pulled it down.
Why would Biloxi say such a thing, and why was it so offensive? Because it reminded everyone that Mississippi likes to celebrate some pretty old and racist stuff in a state that, during the Civil War, had more black people enslaved and living there than white people.
The incident, however, highlighted an awkward truth about Mississippi’s Martin Luther King Jr Day: that it is also Robert E Lee Day.
Lee was a leading commander of the military forces of the Confederacy, which fought in defense of slavery in the civil war from 1861 to 1865.
Arkansas and Alabama also jointly celebrate Martin Luther King Day and Robert E Lee Day, despite annual protests.
City officials have thrown up their hands saying that this is an old city ordinance, and it’s outdated. Of course, it’s still on the books.
“Here in Biloxi, we embrace cultural diversity,” Vincent Creel, the city’s public affairs manager, told The Huffington Post on Friday. “In fact, in the same Facebook page and Twitter account that everybody’s talking about, we’re touting our MLK Day celebration.”
“For whatever reason, the state couldn’t bring itself to just say ‘Martin Luther King Jr. Day,’” Creel said of the state’s inclusion of Lee in the holiday. “Somewhere along the lines, that evolved into ‘Great Americans Day,’ unfortunately. And yes, I did say ‘unfortunately.’”
The reason is because they’re racist. Not being able to distinguish between a man who sacrificed his life in the pursuit of equality for people of all colors and creeds and economic backgrounds, versus a wealthy guy that decided to help kill Americans while defending a racist, slavery-based band of rebels … isn’t a competition.