Texas Confederate Heroes Day

WASHINGTON — Today, Common Defense, the nation’s largest grassroots veterans’ organization, urges Texas’s elected leaders to condemn the confederacy and change Confederate Heroes’ Day holiday. 

Common Defense’s Political Director, Naveed Shah, released the following statement:

“Today, Texas commemorates Confederate Heroes’ Day; hopefully, for the last time. Common Defense, and the veterans across Texas and the United States that we represent, joins other stakeholders, including Texas Representative Jarvis Johnson (D-Houston), in calling for the holiday to be abolished. As veterans of various conflicts, we recognize that Texas does not have a day to honor our military members who served during the World Wars or Korea or Vietnam or the Gulf War or Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, Texas only has Confederate Heroes’ Day.” 

“Changing the holiday — which was enacted in 1973, more than a century after the Civil War ended — would not, as opponents contend, contribute to an erasure of Texas history. It is wrong to honor traitors who not only fought to preserve the evil institution of slavery, but led a revolt against their own countrymen to do it. Celebrating Confederates devalues the valor and sacrifice of Americans who have fought and died in global conflicts for the United States of America, not against it.”

“Common Defense’s veterans and supporters are proud to stand with Representative Johnson’s efforts to change the holiday.” 

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