Confederate Memorial Day out, Juneteenth in. Midlands town makes contentious holiday swap

The town of Swansea is shaking up its holiday schedule in a way that’s sparking controversy.

Swansea’s town council voted 3-2 on Monday to add Juneteenth to the town’s holiday schedule, while dropping observance of Confederate Memorial Day.

Juneteenth is a holiday marking the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday observes the anniversary of June 19, 1865 — believed to be the date the last enslaved people in the former Confederacy were liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation. It was recognized as a federal holiday for the first time in 2021. South Carolina observes Confederate Memorial Day as a state holiday each year on May 10 to commemorate South Carolinians who died fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

Town Council member Michael Luongo voted against the move along with Councilwoman Doris Simmons. Luongo argued that both Confederate Memorial Day and Juneteenth are state holidays and Swansea should recognize both of them. Amid ongoing disputes among Swansea council members about the town’s finances, Luongo said Mayor Viola McDaniel’s decision to leave the Confederate holiday off the town schedule was a “power thing”

“For 45 minutes, we bantered back and forth” at October’s council meeting before members then decided to table the holiday discussion. “The town attorney was beside himself because we wasted so much time on it.”

The Lexington County Chronicle reported that Monday’s holiday vote was contentious, with Luongo asking his fellow council members if any of them had family ties to either the Confederacy or slavery, arguing that council members should recuse themselves from any vote where they have a family connection.

“I don’t have a dog in the fight, I don’t have family members who were slaves or slave owners,” Luongo told The State. “(But) the Confederacy lost 500,000 people who fought for something.

“We have white (town) employees, and the council just discriminated against our white employees,” he said.

A call by The State to McDaniel was not immediately returned. Council members Linda Butler and Jerome Williams, who also voted for the holiday change, declined to comment on the holiday change.

Along with state offices, Lexington County is one of only a handful of counties that close its offices on Confederate Memorial Day. But Luongo conceded the town has the ability to set its own holiday schedule independent of those the state and county observe.