According to the Mississippi Free Press, last week Governor Tate Reeves (R) again declared April as Confederate Heritage Month. Previous gubernatorial proclamations of this ilk appeared only on Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Facebook pages, not on official state websites. This year a confederacy museum in Beauvoir, MS broadcast this year’s declaration.1
“Although Governor Reeves signed the law changing the old flag [which had a Confederate flag in its corner], he continues to deny the lasting effects of the state’s white supremacist history. In 2021, he told Fox News that “there is not systemic racism in America”—contradicting mountains of evidence, including the vestiges of Jim Crow that remain in force in Mississippi law like the State’s racially targeted 1890 voter disenfranchisement law.”
The Honorable Tate Reeves has been in government since 2004 as Treasurer, Lieutenant- and now 65th Governor of the Magnolia State and must be proud of his accomplishments over the past 20 years. Financial site WalletHub ranks Mississippi the worst state in America to live in: economy (49th), poverty (50th) and quality of life (49th); World Population Review ranks it second-worst, slightly ahead of neighboring Louisiana.
Endnotes:
1This museum annually receives $100,000 of state funds for “maintenance and development.”
2Only four men from Mississippi have so far been charged in the Jan6 assault on the US Capitol; by contrast: Louisiana (3); Florida (110); Alabama (17); Georgia (20); the Carolinas (43); and Texas (86).
Sources: governorreeves.ms.gov www.mississippifreepress.org/… theblackwallsttimes.com/… www.gulflive.com/… worldpopulationreview.com/...