Thread by @JemarTisby

Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, continues the state tradition of declaring April "Confederate Heritage Month."
There's so much wrong with this...
m.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/apr/…

You can claim "heritage not hate" all you want, but you can never avoid the fact that the Confederacy, and all its supposed heroes, stood for the enslavement of people who look like me.
avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/c…

The celebration of the Confederacy is simultaneously a veneration of race-based chattel slavery. Whether one intends this or not (and plenty do), the two cannot be separated. This is also why other Confederate monuments, emblems, and statues need to come down. #TakeItDown

A month devoted to the "heritage" of the Confederacy that does not give a full-throated recounting and condemnation of slavery is just propaganda.

I wrote a day-by-day history that details the Confederacy's racism better than any "heritage" month will.
jemartisby.com/2016/05/03/cel…

Here's a modest proposal: Next year marks 20 years since the last referendum on changing the state flag. Let's do another referendum in 2021. But only if it's free and fair and the nearly 40% of African American residents can easily cast their vote.
ballotpedia.org/Mississippi_Fl…

There's already a popular option for replacing the state flag of Mississippi. The artist is Laurin Stennis, granddaughter of the late Mississippi Senator and well-known opponent of Black civil rights, John C. Stennis. Laurin wants to create a "positive symbol for all".

Learn more about an alternative flag for Mississippi here: declaremississippi.com.
#PutItUp

As Bryan Stevenson has said, "The North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war." We need to write a new narrative, and that can only happen if we remove the symbols of hate and replace them with symbols of hope, unity, and love.