Democratic Lawmaker introduces bill to rename Southern States

Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced H.R. 2020, the Erasing Confederate History Act of 2020, legislation that provides a comprehensive plan to rename the 11 states that made up the original Confederacy.

South Carolina was the first to secede, on December 20, 1860, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. On February 8, 1861, representatives of those states announced the formation of the Confederate States of America, with its capital at Montgomery, Alabama. After the Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina—also seceded and joined the Confederacy.

“It’s an insult to African-Americans who are descendants of slaves living in the formerly Rebel states to live under the same state name that enslaved their forefathers.”

Republicans in the House, the political party of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln, said it should be up to these States to decide their own name as well as their state flag.

Waters also pointed out that, “All of these State flags should be redesigned as well. Especially Mississippi—the last stronghold of the Confederacy.”

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are organizing peaceful protests.

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