A debate over whether to pan Charlottesville’s annual observance of a holiday honoring Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson plunged the Charlottesville City Council Chambers into chaos at times Monday.
On Feb. 17, the council is scheduled to decide whether Charlottesville will continue to mark the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day — the third Monday of January — as a local government holiday.
“There is a sentiment in our community that the holiday is outdated and offensive to many, and should be retired here in the City,” City Manager Maurice Jones wrote in a Jan. 28 email to city employees.
Charlottesville does not give employees a paid day off on Veterans Day, he noted, at the meeting.
The debate Monday drew speakers from Petersburg and Richmond and letter writers from Oregon, Maryland and Ohio, some of whom signed their notes “In Honor of Old Virginia” or “Respectfully … a daughter of the South.”
