![]() “With a monument, you try to set the meaning of the past in stone. “You can think of federal holidays as being like monuments erected in parks,” says Matthew Dennis, author of “Red, White, and Blue Letter Days,” a 2002 book on American holidays. But over the past 40 years, as Columbus’ image has shifted from the “discoverer of America” to that of a racist and imperialist, cities and states have either changed the holiday’s name (Hawaii calls it “Discovery Day”) or used the day to honor others since 1989, South Dakoka has called it “Native American Day.” Lee.Ĭolumbus Day became a national holiday in 1968, endorsed by Congress and President Lyndon Johnson as a tribute to immigrants and as a “declaration of willingness to face with confidence the imponderables of unknown tomorrows,” according to a Senate report at the time. Alabama and Mississippi still pair King’s birthday with the birthday of Confederate Gen. ![]() Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday was so strong that it was signed into law in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, who had opposed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the 1960s and privately believed the late civil rights leader’s standing was “based on an image, not reality.” Even then, Arizona, New Hampshire and South Carolina resisted making it a state holiday, with South Carolina waiting until 2000. Whether statements of patriotism or social justice, federal holidays mirror a part of the country’s sense of itself and how it changes. It was therefore easy for both sides to honor Washington’s birthday and Independence Day.” “Both sides in the Civil War claimed to have fought in the spirit of the American Revolution. attempted to restore common ground between North and South,” Chernow says. He notes that Memorial Day, the honoring of those who died in war, did not become a federal holiday until 1888. The war wounds were still deep and irrevocable, and any commemoration of the war itself would have been seen as divisive,” Chernow says. ![]() “They followed the Civil War, but, by no accident, they had nothing to do with the Civil War. ![]() The first holidays, notes Grant biographer Ron Chernow, were the safest ones at the time - New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and George Washington’s birthday (enacted in 1879). Juneteenth and other federal holidays have passed with substantial majorities in Congress, suggesting broad, bipartisan consensus. ![]()
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