My journey down the state’s rabbit hole began with questions from a colleague.

Of course he thought so. For almost 50 years, February has been officially Black History Month in the United States, and the celebration’s roots date back to the 1920s.

In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford presented an official effort launched by Black History Month in February, launched by Black scholar Carter Woodson.

Woodson sent a press release in February 1926, announcing Black History Week. He chose the moon for the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Declaration, which freed those enslaved on February 14th, and abolitionist Frederick Douglas.

However, the last two Tennessee governors (a review of a declaration issued by Lee, who served from 2010 to 2018 and government Bill Haslam) only showed the three years that the month was officially recognized. Masu.

Lee issued the declaration of Black History Month in 2019 – taking office in his first year – in 2023. Haslam recognized the opportunity in 2013.

I contacted Lee’s office and asked why he chose the year he went to formally recognize the month and how the governor would decide which declaration to issue. While I was asking questions, I was given a ban on President Donald Trump’s diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) in June (a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in 1865). He also asked if he would continue to recognize the Moon Birthday Pastor. Federal workplace and Lee’s support for Trump.

Several federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and the CIA Paused Recognition of Black History Month, MLK Day, Junteent, and Recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day and LGBTQ Pride Month – even if Trump signed a declaration that focuses on Black History Month.

Lee’s spokesman Elizabeth Johnson pointed out that. Trump It is marked In the final year of the first administration in June, the Tennessee General Assembly was established in June as a state holiday. 2021.

“There is no reason to believe that federal or state holidays will not be observed in accordance with the law,” Johnson said in a statement.

She did not answer my questions about the formal perception of Black History Month.

As they continued their search for the state’s governor’s declaration, Lee and Haslam were the native Virginia player Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate forces in the Confederate War in the Civil War seven times since the last 2010. I realized I had admitted.

According to the declaration, the Annotated Tennessee Code demands that Lee be praised by the state on January 19th each year, focusing on Lee’s service to the Confederate forces.

Forest was arrested by the state capitol in the year of production.

Another Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest, widely recognized as the early leader of Ku Klux Klan, has been recognized by the state eight times since 2010. The state Capitol is, so perhaps there were some evolutions on the Lee side.

For Lee’s achievements, he marked June every year since his savings in 2019, marking the end of slavery in 1865.

However, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday since President Ronald Reagan signed the law in 1983, has only been a publicity public holiday, and has been a proclamation twice in 2023 and 2024 in recent years. Not there.

Speaking of Reagan, Tennessee tells him the February 6th birthday, especially the former Republican president.

That sounds good, but many Americans remember Reagan’s “drug war” through a lean, rosy glass. Reagan popularized the racist urban myth of “The Queen of Welfare” and his economic policy Arrested a black family It’s especially difficult.

According to Johnson, the declaration will be issued at the request of its members, but at the Governor’s discretion, Form on the state website.

Hispanic History Month – September – Certified six times since 2010 and has been awarded seven times on Confederate Decoration Day.

I praise Lee at least for degrading Confederate leadership and the honor given to him on holidays. However, I appreciate his spokesman’s optimism about observing other holidays, but I remain skeptical.

I recently travelled to Washington to Washington for photos with Trump to celebrate the new private school voucher law that is most likely to help the wealthy people in Tennessee, but Lee is the biggest of the state’s minorities and poor people. There are reservations that say they have profits.

But as the old saying goes, hope will forever breeze. And it’s still mid-February. It is not too late for Lee to use his phrases to recognize the many contributions of Black Tennessees to the state’s “famous history.”