Bill Would End Confederate Heroes Day in Texas
Style Magazine Newswire | 4/26/2019, 11:27 a.m.
Four years after he made headlines as the Austin middle schooler who made eliminating Confederate Heroes Day his cause, Jacob Hale returned to the Texas House Thursday in support of a bill he helped inspire. House Bill 1183, authored by Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, would eliminate Confederate Heroes Day from the list of state holidays an agency can observe. Hale said he noticed that the holiday, which is designated as January 19, sometimes coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which occurs on the third Monday of January — as it did in 2015. Early Thursday morning during public testimony on the bill, House State Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, recognized Hale from his appearance at a 2015 legislative hearing. Then, he testified in support of House Bill 1242, authored by Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, which would have replaced the holiday with Civil War Remembrance Day.
