Jefferson Davis was president of the Confederate States of America, a white supremacist government, from 1861 to 1865. Since 1901, Alabama has marked Jefferson Davis’ Birthday as a state holiday on the first Monday in June. (Netterville Briggs via Getty Images)
Even Jim Crow Alabama couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for Jefferson Davis.
When an Alabama House representative filed a bill in 1900 to make his birthday a holiday, the Birmingham Post-Herald called it “an event which the general public does not remember and has no wish to be reminded of.”
“Vast numbers of Southerners do not place their faith in Jefferson Davis as a figure in history, and very few of them do so much as remember him except when they see his name in the…
