Snowday Makeup In Tennessee Causes Controversy: Should Schools Open On MLK Holiday?

January14, 2011, Clarkesville, TN]------Monday, January, 17 is Dr. Martin Luther King JrMartin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday. However there is a controversy brewing over what some schools plan to do on that day.

Schools in Clarksville, Tennessee, plan to open on MLK day, claiming snow day makeup. They say schools in Montgomery county have used up all of their snow days but this decision by the local school board, has caused quite a controversy.

Some parents are upset over this decision, with one very vocal opposition coming from local resident, Turner McCullough Jr, who marched with Dr. King in the fight for Civil Rights. He even participated in the historic march on Washington, in 1963.

McCullough reportedly had strong words of protest, saying, "How dare you think that's just another day you can just take?--It is not another day. It is America's painful history made whole and complete by the acknowledgment that a wrong was made right."

The National Chapter of the NAACP is reportedly also very upset by the school openings. Ironically, thought, the Chairman of the local school board responsible for the school opening decision, Jimmie Garland, is also chairman of the local NAACP Chapter.

Chairman Garland had this to say in rebuttal, "As citizens of this community, our focus should be on the education of our children, not necessarily on a day--Even though in the minority community, Martin Luther King Day is a special day for us, and I'm not going to say that it's not, but not even that day is sacred when it comes to the education of our children, reports ESMV-TV, Nashville.

What do you thing of schools using Dr. Martin Luther King Jr holiday as a make-up snow day? Is it just coincidental that the place of much civil unrest, bias and racism, Montgomery, is the place of this particular controversy?