Bill would require paid Confederate holiday in SC

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.

Senator Robert Ford's bill won initial approval from a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.
t 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.

"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.