The Pulaski County Quorum Court passed a resolution Tuesday urging the state Legislature to end the joint holiday commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gen. Robert E. Lee on the same day.
"We want to have separate dates," said the resolution's sponsor, District 9 Justice of the Peace Judy Green.
The county's resolution comes a week after the city of Little Rock's Board of Directors passed a similar measure to end the dual celebration of the Confederate general and the civil-rights icon.
King's birthday is on Jan. 15, and Lee's is on Jan. 19. Both men's birthdays are recognized as a state holiday and are celebrated on the third Monday in January.
Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi are the only states that celebrate the men's birthdays jointly. Southern states like Florida, Georgia and Tennessee celebrate the two men on separate holidays.
The Arkansas Legislature recognized Martin Luther King Jr. Day two years after Congress made it a federal holiday in 1983. But the state had already been celebrating Lee's birthday as a legal holiday for roughly 40 years. State lawmakers decided to merge the two holidays in 1985, as they voted to codify King's federally recognized holiday into state law.
Efforts to drop the Lee celebration in the 1980s failed. In 2015 the debate came up again in the Legislature when state Rep. Fredrick Love, D-Little Rock -- who is also an employee of Pulaski County -- introduced a bill in the 2015 session to separate the holiday. That effort failed as well, although he has said he expects to make another legislative effort during the 2017 session.
"We talked about this last year; it's high time this happened," said Tyler Denton, the county's District 2 Justice of the Peace.
The Quorum Court passed the resolution unanimously.
Metro on 12/14/2016