Random Quote
A man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.-
MLK, 2 Civil War generals share a holiday
Six years ago yesterday, I wrote about two Civil War generals that shared a four-day holiday weekend with Martin Luther King, Jr. Since that time, though, not much has been in the news in other states about the Virginia holiday.
In the old post, in “The Political Scoop,” a column I wrote for Newsguy.com for almost three years, I noted that it was odd to imagine two Civil War generals and Martin Luther King Jr. sharing anything in common, let alone a holiday weekend.
Virginia, for years, had the rare oddity of holiday – at least on paper. It was a holiday that honored all three men: Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan (”Stonewall”) Jackson, as well as MLK.
I got thinking about that old column Saturday, while talking with a friend. Today, while taking a break from work, Google’d for information about the tri-birthday holiday. One example that I found, sadly, was in Fairfax County, where MLK holiday was noted prominently, yet the “Lee-Jackson” day was relegated to nothing more than a footnote.
Sure, my search wasn’t exhaustive, and no, I didn’t spend a lot of time on the Commonwealth of Virginia site looking for information about the holiday(s). According to one site*, though, it seems the holiday may have been renamed.
Back in 2001, Viola Baskerville (D-Richmond, VA), in an interview with the Associated Press, said debates would probably never cease over honoring those from the American Civil War.
“We’re always going to have this challenge in Virginia because of our unique historical perspective,” Baskerville said.
Virginia served as the Confederate capitol, but can also boast that it was the unfortunate host to the greatest number of Civil War battles. Those factors, coupled with others, such as the fact that Jackson is a native of the state, have been the subject of debate for many years in the statehouse.
Back in 2001, when I did my research on Virginia’s holiday history, I found things started getting hairy in 1985, when the state added MLK to the list of holidays. See, this just added it to an existing state holiday — January 19 – that was used to commemorated the birthdays of Lee and Jackson.
King, as you probably are aware, was born on January 15. Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, while Stonewall Jackson was born on January 21.
Former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, in 2000, proposed a separate holiday for the generals’ birthdays. The state’s General Assembly went along with the idea, and decided upon January 12 as that day.
Jeb Stuart IV, great-grandson of the Civil War general, and president of the Museum of the Confederacy, told AP that “All three were great men,” and said that breaking the holidays apart, giving the Civil War generals a day of their own, as well as MLK his own day in the state, was a good idea.
“Breaking (the holidays) up into two holidays gives the opportunity to concentrate on two different parts of history, but all should be honored, no matter what forum they’re placed in,” Stuart said.
Be it the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, or the Gulf War, people have always been honored, especially in their home state. That’s exactly what Virginia is doing with the generals: giving them their due.
Odd as it is, it is still the birthdays of all three men. Men who stood tall in their own days, in their own ways, and all of whom had great personal struggles in the paths that led their lives. As I said in 2001: Happy birthday to all three.
The site with the reference, the only one I found, has adult content. Since you’re not my child or on my computer network, I cannot control your actions or your browsing. The information may be found on Big Money NiMo’s site.
