The commissioners had claimed that adding Lee, the top general in the Confederate army that defended the slavocracy in the Civil War, would solve a "divisive issue" and honor "Southern heritage."

A majority of the 140 people who filled the county courthouse to overflow supported a Martin Luther King holiday alone. A handful of right-wingers wore Confederate flag regalia. After the vote there was enthusiastic applause and scenes of jubilation on the courthouse steps.

"We're very happy. This is what we asked for," said Alice Davis of Concerned Citizens, a local group that had helped to organize opposition to the proposed combined holiday.

Tim Scott, another member of the group, said they began pushing for the county to observe King Day because "we knew Stanly and Davidson are the only counties [in North Carolina] that don't recognize Martin Luther King Day."

He said that when the proposal to observe the holiday was presented to the Board of Commissioners in June, "they just said they would consider it. It was like they turned a deaf ear." Indeed, the minutes of the meeting show that when the question was raised the chair merely responded that employees have the option of using a personal day on King Day and no further action was taken.

In late July, however, the commissioners voted unanimously to link Lee's name to King Day, as is done in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

In response, the Stanly County NAACP presented a petition with 1,600 signatures opposing adding Lee's name to the holiday. About 200 people turned out for the August 6 meeting of the Board of Commissioners. The Charlotte Observer reports that in the "crowd of both black and white county residents, people admonished commissioners for about 45 minutes."

At their August 13 meeting the commissioners decided to have no public comment that night. They then decided that the county, which employs 478 people, should adopt the state schedule of holidays. This includes observing both King Day and Veterans Day as paid holidays.

The county will recognize the statewide "Confederate Memorial Day" on May 10, but county offices will remain open. County employees will also retain one personal holiday. Overall, they will have one more holiday than before.

Celebrating outside the meeting room, Dexter Townsend noted that the victory was won by the fight. When they adopted the combined holiday the commission "may have thought we would take it laying down." The firm response of supporters of the fight against racism, and the publicity it generated, "was creating a bad image for Stanly County."

In recent years a number of other struggles around official recognition of Confederate figures and symbols have taken place. In January 2000 some 50,000 people took part in a Martin Luther King day rally in Columbia, South Carolina, to demand the state government remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol building. The flag came down six months later, but it remains on the statehouse grounds.

On February 28 workers and farmers in Alabama won a victory when, after months of debate and protests, a bust of Confederate general Nathan Forrest, a founder of the Ku Klux Klan, was moved off Selma city property.

Dean Hazlewood is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. Naomi Craine contributed to this article.  
 
 
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