Celebration gone sour: Chesco250 apologizes for Facebook post highlighting Confederate President Jefferson Davis

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A local effort to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday soured before the party even started.

America 250 Chester County published a Facebook post Tuesday afternoon honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis for fighting “for a more perfect union.” Hours later, the commission issued an apology.

The commission, which is tasked with orchestrating local programming, said Wednesday in a statement that the now-edited post “included inaccurate content that never should have been published.”

“The content originated from an intern unaware of Jefferson Davis’s role in American history and was posted through an automated process,” the commission wrote. “There was no intention on the part of the Commission to include or honor figures associated with disunity on platforms meant to celebrate 250 years of American progress and unity.”

The original post began with a nod to the Declaration of Independence and mentioned how “countless Americans have found both challenge and inspiration in their pursuit of justice and equality.”

“Visionaries such as Jefferson Davis have drawn upon the principles laid out in this founding document to fight for a more perfect union,” the post read. “Their stories are a testament to how the ideals of liberty, equality, and freedom continue to shape and inspire movements for change.”

The Chesco250 post was nearly identical to another one published on Saturday celebrating President Abraham Lincoln.

Davis was the only president of the Confederacy, which sought to uphold slavery in its fight with the Union. Following the Civil War, Davis was imprisoned and accused of treason. He has since become a symbol of the Lost Cause.

The post set off angry comments that lambasted Chesco250. State Sen. John Kane, a Democrat who represents Delaware and Chester counties, demanded that his name be removed as a “partner” from the Chesco250 website.

“The Confederacy fought to uphold slavery and tear this country [apart. There’s] no celebrating that,” Kane wrote. “Full stop.”

State Sen. Carolyn Comitta called the post a “disgrace.”

“This was an opportunity to bring people together and bring out the best in each other as Chester Countians, Pennsylvanians, and Americans,” Comitta wrote. “It’s embarrassing that it is even associated with Chester County250 or America250. I wholeheartedly agree with my friend and colleague, Senator John Kane. I do not want to be a part of something that glorifies Jefferson Davis or the racist Confederacy he led.”

According to the commission, once the post was brought to the attention of senior leaders, the organization reviewed its procedures to correct the record and did so “as soon as possible.”

“We deeply regret and sincerely apologize for the understandable anger and outrage the post caused,” the commission wrote. “We share that sentiment and we are committed to putting the controls and mechanisms in place to ensure that nothing like this happens again. A ‘teaching moment’ like this reinforces the very need for Chesco 250 and for programming that ponders our complicated national history.”