Virginia's lone black statewide official sits out Robert E. Lee tribute

[chimpymustgo]

RICHMOND, VA - JAN 18: Virginia Lt Governor Justin Fairfax (D) stepped off the rostrum in the Virginia Senate as a member paid tribute to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee January 18, 2019, in Richmond, Virginia. (Laura Vozzella/TWP)

By Laura Vozzella January 18 at 3:05 PM
RICHMOND — Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, only the second African American elected to statewide office in Virginia, briefly bowed out of his duties in the state Senate on Friday in protest of a tribute to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Fairfax (D), who normally presides over Richmond’s upper chamber, stepped off the dais and let a Republican wield the gavel while Sen. Richard Stuart (R-King George) marked Lee’s 212th birthday with praise for “a great Virginian and a great American.”

“I believe there are certain people in history we should honor that way in the Senate .?.?. and I don’t believe that he is one of them,” Fairfax, a descendant of slaves, said in an interview afterward. “I think it’s very divisive to do what was done there, particularly in light of the history that we’re now commemorating — 400 years since the first enslaved Africans came to the commonwealth of Virginia.

edit

(more at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginias-lone-black-statewide-official-sits-out-robert-e-lee-tribute/2019/01/18/7b721ba4-1b4c-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.aa033bdf1e43&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

[struggle4progress]

1. Lee has his lasting memorial, known to all Americans: the great cemetery at Arlington

[rogue emissary]

2. Glad he is highlighting how offensive it is to celebrate

Lee.

[chimpymustgo]

3. It's such a turn-around in public attitudes here in the South. The statues, the flags are

coming down. Still some resistance, but many more seem to "get" it.

[PDittie]

4. Today is Lee's birthday, aka Confederate Heroes Day in Texas

If it seems oddly coincidental that Confederate Heroes Day shows up on the same weekend we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, that’s because it’s not a coincidence.

https://www.politicalorphans.com/its-still-confederate-heroes-day-in-texas/