Shhh…

Via Newsweek:

Georgia’s governor has quietly removed Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee’s Birthday from the state calendar, replacing them with the innocuous-sounding designation “state holiday.”

The change, first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was contained in a memo dated August 5 sent by Governor Nathan Deal to state government staff.

The move comes amid increasing backlash against symbols honoring the Confederacy. In late June, Alabama removed four Confederate flags from its Capitol. The next month, the Confederate battle flag (which has a different design from the Confederate national flag) was removed from the Capitol grounds in South Carolina after Dylann Roof, a self-identified white supremacist, allegedly killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston in June.

According to Brian Robinson, deputy chief of staff for communications for Georgia’s governor, the holidays are meant to honor the Confederacy and Robert E. Lee. “That is why they are in state law, and we are not denying that or pretending that’s not the case,” he says. However, he adds, “those names are not spelled out in state law.… It just says, ‘These shall be state holidays.'” It, is, therefore, within Deal’s power to rename the holidays on the state’s calendars for planning purposes, Robinson says.