January 19 is General Robert E. Lee's birthday. It’s also the date of an official Texas state holiday Confederate Heroes Day. This year it happened to also be the date of the national Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday.
Jacob Hale, a 13-year-old student from Austin is now working to rename Confederate Heroes Day to Civil War Memorial Day and move it to May.
He convinced State Representative Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat to file the bill HB 1242 and this week he addressed the House Committee on Culture, Tourism and Recreation.
Here is video of the bill's hearing. The bill comes up at the 2:42:50 mark.
