Georgia lawmakers ok Confederate History Month

The NAACP is bristling over efforts by lawmakers to create a Confederate history month in Georgia, while giving short shrift to a proposal that the state apologize for slavery and the Jim Crow laws of segregation.

After a Senate committee voted yesterday for the Confederate heritage bill, state NAACP leader Edward Dubose said it "reeks of hypocrisy" that legislators would feel responsible to honor past deeds of their ancestors while resisting an apology to the victims of slavery.

The Senate Rules committee approved the Confederate heritage measure yesterday by a unanimous vote, sending it to the full Senate for consideration. It would dub April as Confederate History and Heritage Month to honor the memory of the Confederacy and those who contributed to the cause of Southern independence.

The bill is sponsored by Senator Jeff Mullis, a Republican whose family owned land on which the Civil War's bloody Battle of Chickamauga was fought.