Former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus (D-MS) said his state’s declaration of April as Confederate Heritage Month celebrates “something that was truly awful: people trying to own other people.”
CNN’s Victor Blackwell read part of a statement from current Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) that said the state has been honoring Confederate Heritage Month for 30 years.
“Well, first, I didn’t do it when I was governor,” Mabus said, continuing:
And, second, Confederate Heritage? Really? The heritage that I think of with the Confederacy is slavery, is treason, and is losing. So which one of those heritages are we really honoring here? But it’s all part of that lost cause narrative, the ‘Moonlight and Magnolias’ that came about few years after the Civil War in an attempt to reassert white supremacy. It came hand-in-hand with Jim Crow. And, it worked for a long, long time. Statues were put up, this heritage notion. But what it does is incredibly hurtful, it is incredibly harmful, and it honors something that we should learn about, know about, but definitely, definitely not honor.
Blackwell asked, “Is the Confederate constituency in Mississippi strong enough that to simply just let this be on the books without signing a proclamation to acknowledge it, that there would be some political pushback for the governor?”
“Well, there certainly should be some political pushback,” Mabus said. “And, I think
“And when I was governor, when I was running for governor, my slogan was ‘Mississippi will never be last again.’ Mississippi has been so far down on so many measures. And this is one of the reasons we’re trying to look back on something that was truly awful: people trying to own other people. And that’s the reason the Confederate states seceded. All you have to do is read their articles of succession.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.