COLUMBIA, S.C. (KMOX) — In South Carolina, all state government offices are closed Monday to mark Confederate Memorial Day. The annual holiday is in honor of the hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers who died fighting during the Civil War.
The state’s annual day of observation has been the subject of outrage on social media:
Former congressman and South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Joe Cunningham says, if elected, he’ll do away with Confederate Memorial Day and will make an “Election Day” holiday instead.
South Carolina is among a handful of states in the South with such an official holiday. State offices in Alabama and Mississippi closed down for their Confederate Memorial Days late last month.
South Carolina celebrates the annual day on May 10 because it is the day Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died in 1863 after he was wounded by his own troops. It’s also the day Union soldiers captured fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia in 1865.
*story by Audacy
