Bill Would Require Paid Confederate Holiday in SC

Sen Robert Ford, D-Charleston, hands out flyers in Columbia, S.C., in this file photo. A bill by...

Sen Robert Ford, D-Charleston, hands out flyers in Columbia, S.C., in this file photo. A bill by Sen. Ford won initial approval from a Senate subcommittee Tuesday. It would force county and municipal governments to follow the schedule of holidays used by the state, which gives workers 12 paid days off, including May 10 to honor Confederate war dead.

(Mary Ann Chastai/AP Photo)

A black state senator is pushing a bill that would require South Carolina cities and counties to give their workers a paid day off for Confederate Memorial Day or lose millions in state funds.

Democratic Sen. Robert Ford's bill won initial approval from a Senate subcommittee Tuesday. It would force county and municipal governments to follow the schedule of holidays used by the state, which gives workers 12 paid days off, including May 10 to honor Confederate war dead. Mississippi and Alabama also recognize Confederate Memorial Day.

Years ago, Ford said, he pushed a bill to make both that day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day paid holidays. He considered it an effort to help people understand the history of both the civil rights movement and the Confederacy in a state where the Orders of Secession are engraved in marble in the Statehouse lobby, portraits of Confederate generals look down on legislators in their chambers and the Confederate flag flies outside.

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"Every municipality and every citizen of South Carolina, should be, well, forced to respect these two days and learn what they can about those two particular parts of our history," Ford said Tuesday.

In a state steeped in a segregationist past, "there's no love in this state between black and white basically," he said. That's not apparent at the Statehouse, where black and white legislators get along, "but if you go out there in real South Carolina, it's hatred and I think we can bring our people together."

Lonnie Randolph, president of the state conference of NAACP branches, objected to that reasoning.

"Here Senator Ford is talking about the importance of race relations by forcing recognition of people who did everything they could to destroy another race — particularly those that look like I do," Randolph said. "You can't make dishonor honorable. It's impossible."

Ron Dorgay, a Sons of Confederate Veterans member from Elgin, said race relations have moved far from hatred but he hopes Ford's bill brings more understanding of the state's past.