Civil War, rights honored

ATLANTA --- When legislators begin amending bills, some unpredictable coalitions result.

A Senate Bill passed the House 146-10 Wednesday that paired the civil rights movement with the Civil War.

Senate Bill 27 had already passed the Senate when the House considered it. The measure would make permanent Georgia's annual observation of April as Civil War History and Heritage Month, something normally designated by gubernatorial proclamation or an annual bill, according to Rep. Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson.

Rep. Bob Bryant saw it as an opportunity to pass legislation the freshman Democrat has been pushing all session, naming the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum in Savannah as the state's official archive for that transitional period in racial relations.

With the support of the whole Chatham County delegation, he passed House Bill 108 through the House to do it, but it got stuck in the Senate Rules Committee and has died. Sen. Lester Jackson, D-Savannah, had an identical bill that never made it that far.

Atlanta legislators objected to giving the solitary distinction to the Savannah museum since they plan to build one of their own that would house the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Bryant worded his amendment Wednesday to please them by naming the Savannah institution "an official" rather than "the official."

The amendment passed without objection, not even a peep from the Civil War buffs in the House such as Mr. Benton. That might have been because a House version of the Civil War bill he co-sponsored never got out of committee.

Despite the combined support of the amended legislation, several Atlanta-area blacks voted against the bill, but most of the other black legislators supported it.

Such easy passage might have been surprising to some after the House's tense debate two weeks earlier over whether or not to make President Obama an honorary member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.

The Civil War bill with Mr. Bryant's amendment now returns to the Senate for agreement to his changes before heading to Gov. Sonny Perdue's desk for his signature.