AUSTIN, Texas — The day after the country honored the legacy of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., some Texans also got a paid day off Tuesday for Confederate Heroes Day.
The state holiday falls on Robert E. Lee’s birthday and is intended to celebrate him, Jefferson Davis, and other Confederate soldiers. For year, a group of state lawmakers have tried to do away with the holiday, and remove Confederate statues on Capitol grounds.
So far, they have been unsuccessful, but in the wake of the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol where one rioter was seen carrying a Confederate flag, Texas elected officials believe their calls ring a little louder this year.
“The Confederate flag was carried into the United States Capitol, as it was stormed by domestic terrorists. While the Civil War abolished slavery, the Confederate culture based upon white supremacy has persisted,” said State Rep. Jarvis Johnson (D-Houston) who filed one of two bills to abolish the holiday this legislative session and introduced it in years past.
Another Democrat, Rep. Shawn Thierry (D-Houston) filed the other bill.
"It's just mind-blowing to me that we have the gall to call them heroes. It really defies logic,” Thierry told Spectrum News 1.
19-year-old Jacob Hale of Austin made headlines in 2015 at the age of 13 for his efforts at the Texas legislature to eradicate the holiday. He has returned to the State Capitol since then to testify before committees. Tuesday, Hale joined lawmakers supporting the effort in a virtual news conference.
“Texas does not honor any other war specific group of veterans with a holiday. Somehow those who fought the Nazis in the Taliban are unworthy of this distinction. But a couple of non-Texans who fought against America to maintain a racial caste system are,” Hale said.
Texas is one of states with Confederate Memorial holidays. While such distinctions draw criticism, former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a Vietnam War veteran, said it has to be placed in historical context.
“If you look at the reason, men fight wars, and having participated into one myself, you have to measure the common soldier differently than you measure the politician that got us into that war. The politician is culpable, the soldier not so much,” Patterson said.
As Confederate symbols have been taken down nationwide in recent years, Patterson believes a lot of American history does not hold up to contemporary scrutiny.
“There is no iconic history from the past, including Abraham Lincoln, who would survive a test of today's standards,” Patterson said. “If we take down a Confederate monument, because of its association with slavery, then should we not look critically at a Buffalo Soldier monument?”
Despite what has happened in Washington, he said his opinions will not be shaped by the actions of others.
“I don't think what happened at the Capitol, or any other location, where anarchists of whatever ilk, left or right or involved has any bearing on this issue at all, none,” Patterson said. I don't measure this by the actions of people, such as we've seen over the last year, who really, I think they're more anarchist.”
For critics, Confederate Heroes Day is about being on the right or wrong side of history. When asked about the argument to learn from Confederate symbols, rather than tearing down statues or doing away with the holiday, Thierry told Spectrum News 1, she said she believes those lessons should be in texts.
"We can learn from them in books, and we don't tend to erect statues that we don't glorify and admire. And then secondly, if we're going to continue to have monuments to people that we believe are traitors to our country, and those are just facts, then we should call it for what it is. We can call this holiday insurrectionists and traitors day,” Thierry said.