The shared Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee holiday in Arkansas is no more.
Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation ending the state’s practice of commemorating Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on the same holiday as slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., leaving only two states remaining that honor the two men on the same day.
Hutchinson has been a proponent of the bill saying it would unify the state and improve its image. This ends the state’s 32-year-old practice of combining the two days into one holiday.
“I expected this debate would divide us, but instead during the debate we listened to each other and the conversation brought us together. This is an education bill in which the discussion educated each of us, and we learned that history needs to be viewed not just from our own lens, but through the eyes and experiences of others,” Hutchinson said.
The new law will remove Lee from the state holiday that honors King on the third Monday in January. The Civil War general will instead will be honored with a memorial day, not a state holiday, on the second Saturday in October that will be marked with a gubernatorial proclamation.
The law also requires the Arkansas Department of Education to expand what’s taught in classrooms about the Civil War and civil rights, including more of an emphasis on civil rights leaders such as King, as well as more about civilian and military leadership during the Civil War.
The Arkansas NAACP and the state’s Legislative Black Caucus opposed the dual holiday saying that honoring King on the same day as an icon of the Confederacy was divisive and a reminder of the horrors of slavery for Arkansas’ African-American residents.
