LITTLE ROCK (KTHV) -- The debate over separating the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday from the Arkansas state holiday honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee will flare again in 2016, especially ahead of this year’s celebrations on Jan. 18.
Civil rights leaders have been joined by Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) in calling for a split while traditionalists hope to avoid what they see as a diminished celebration of the Confederate general.
“They want to downgrade Robert E. Lee’s birthday,” said Danny Honnell, a leader of an Arkansas-based chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Groups like Honnell’s have seen a steady dismantling of Confederate flags and symbols since the deadly church shootings in Charleston, South Carolina last summer. The accused shooter was said to be racially motivated and wore Confederate and apartheid symbols.
But civil rights leaders say those symbols represent a dark history, regardless of the violence in Charleston.
"This was wrong. It was evil,” said Dale Charles, president of the Arkansas NAACP. “Even though it was part of the history, it was very, very evil."
Other groups are striking a more conciliatory tone ahead of this year’s holiday.
"We're looking at an opportunity for everybody to come together and pay homage and appreciate a man,” said DuShun Scarbrough of the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission.
Arkansas is one of three states that still honors Lee and King on the same day.
Proposals to end the practice couldn't make it out of a legislative committee last year, but civil rights leaders are hopeful lawmakers take up the issue if a special session is called this spring.
Meanwhile, people like Honnell draw stark comparisons to show the dangers of erasing history.
"Isis is tearing down monuments all over their country - tearing down heritage,” Honnell said. “That's what certain groups are trying to tear down is this Southern heritage."
Civil rights leaders plan to keep the pressure on with a demonstration on King Day.
"We're trying to bring to the conscience of the people of Arkansas that it's time for Arkansas to move past the issues that divide us,” said Charles.