Member of Georgia’s House of Representative, Tommy Benton, wants the state capitol to officially recognize “Confederate History Month” in April.
State Republican Representative of Jefferson, Tommy Benton stated that he wants his fellow legislators to recognize a confederate history month because he claimed that his proposed resolution would recognize and honor Southern heritage. Such resolutions are used by lawmakers to recognize individuals or occasions. Benton states that April is when the Confederate states “began and ended a four-year struggle for states’ rights, individual freedom, and local government control, which they believed to be right and just.”
The recent proposal from Benton has yet to receive a hearing, due to Benton introducing it this month. Members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus are urging people to contact House leadership about it, as they argued it was glorifying a time when slavery was acceptable and it would honor those on the wrong side of history, but Benton continues to claim that his proposed resolution is only to be utilized to pay tribute to Southern heritage.
The lawmaker, Tommy Benton once stated that the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t racist but was rather a “vigilante thing to keep law and order.” House and Senate members quickly disavowed the comments.
State law already recognizes and designates April as “Confederate History and Heritage Month”, but Benton claims that his proposal was simply “recognition of the Southern soldier, his valor and his willingness to go and fight for something that he believed in.” When he was recently questioned by reporters, he refused to discuss whether slavery’s role in the Civil War should be mentioned in the proposed resolution.
“This resolution is about hatred and racism. It’s about glorifying a culture that found slavery acceptable.”
Sandra Scott, Democratic Representative and vice chair of the legislative black caucus, recently stated this, as she said that she doesn’t believe that Benton’s recent proposed resolution is intended to honor military service.
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