--- title: Trevor Noah Slams Confederate Memorial Day VIDEO description: In the wake of Confederate Memorial Day, Trevor Noah made it clear he's definitely not on board with celebrating the controversial holiday. canonical: https://time.com/4757583/trevor-noah-on-confederate-memorial-day/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-27T16:25:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:10.300Z og:title: Watch Trevor Noah Denounce Confederate Memorial Day og:description: "What are black people supposed to do on this holiday?" og:url: https://time.com/4757583/trevor-noah-on-confederate-memorial-day/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Trevor Noah Denounce Confederate Memorial Day twitter:description: "What are black people supposed to do on this holiday?" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Trevor Noah Denounces Confederate Memorial Day: 'What Are Black People Supposed to Do on This Holiday?'  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Apr 27, 2017 4:25 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Apr 27, 2017 4:25 PM UTC In the wake of [Alabama and Mississippi’s](http://time.com/4752403/states-celebrating-confederate-memorial-day/) continued observance of [Confederate Memorial Day](http://time.com/4750347/confederate-memorial-day-history/), [Trevor Noah](http://time.com/4748635/trevor-noah-on-bill-oreilly/) made it clear he is definitely not on board with celebrating the controversial holiday. During Wednesday’s episode of _The Daily Show_, the host denounced the day — which pays homage to Confederate soldiers who lost their lives in the Civil War — as “f—ked up on so many levels.” “First of all, the Confederacy fought the Civil War to defend slavery. Why would you honor that?,” he said. “Secondly, what are black people supposed to do on this holiday?” Noah went on to explain that he has trouble wrapping his head around the idea that honoring the Confederacy can be observed in a non-racist way. “I never understand this argument,” he said. “People go: ‘Hey, back then they didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t know what they were doing was racist.’ First of all, yes they did. But even if they didn’t, you know that now, so what’s your excuse?” Watch the full clip below. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4757583/trevor-noah-on-confederate-memorial-day/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4757583/trevor-noah-on-confederate-memorial-day/"},"headline":"Trevor Noah Denounces Confederate Memorial Day: 'What Are Black People Supposed to Do on This Holiday?'","datePublished":"2017-04-27T16:25:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:10.300Z","description":"In the wake of Confederate Memorial Day, Trevor Noah made it clear he's definitely not on board with celebrating the controversial holiday.","url":"https://time.com/4757583/trevor-noah-on-confederate-memorial-day/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","The Daily Show","TV","Late Night Television","trevor noah","The Daily Show with Trevor Noah"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4757583/trevor-noah-on-confederate-memorial-day/","name":"Trevor Noah Denounces Confederate Memorial Day: 'What Are Black People Supposed to Do on This Holiday?'"}}]}] ```