The State.com posted this article yesterday about a bill to officially recognize “Juneteenth” in that state and making S.C. the 28th state to officially recognize the celebration of emancipation.

Why has S.C. not approved this celebration before…could it be controversy?  Controversy over the celebration? No, but a flag the flies on the statehouse lawn.  And it is my guess that this official adoption of Juneteenth will not sit well with those neo-confederates who long for a rebel memorial day or a Lee/Jackson celebration.

If you want to know if I am right or wrong on this assesement just read the last two paragraphs of the article. 

While five other states, including Alabama and North Carolina, have passed measures expressing regret or otherwise apologizing for slavery, those proposals have not gained much traction here.

“I don’t think that’s something we should do,” said House Speaker Bobby Harrell, a Charleston Republican and co-sponsor of the bill that would recognize “Juneteenth.”

Why can they not apologize for slavery?  True, it will not get one black man a job or take one person of welfare or properly educate one child, but it would go very far in dealing with the underlying issues that have made getting Juneteenth accepted in S.C. a ten year process.

Or, maybe, just mabye, those in S.C. who do know some real history feel that apologizing for slavery would throw the neo-confederates arguments on the causes of the war right back in their face.  Maybe an apology from S.C. would finally open the eyes of so many historically deficient southerners that the War of the Rebellion was really over slavery and that the words of S.C.’s statemen really do tell the truth of the cause of the war.

We can only hope!