On Jan 23, 2007, at 10:42 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Besides it's
> not Lee Jackson Day it's Lee /Jackson/ King Day...
>
> WBUSER
That may be the official title--though I doubt it: see
http://www.dhrm.state.va.us/calendar2006.pdf --but in fact Virginia's
government offices (such as DMV, as I discovered last week) are closed
for _both_ this day and for the national MLK Jr. holiday--and their
telephone announcements call the former simply "Lee-Jackson Day."
Listen, I'm not advocating the abolition of Lee-Jackson Day. In
addition to addressing the needs of a numerous constituency, as Mr.
Moore suggests, it's an opportunity to confront the complexities of
Virginia's and the nation's history, not that we appear to be using it
as such at the moment. (Besides, as a public employee myself, the more
holidays, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned.)
But in all seriousness, there are those who grumble loudly at every
holiday granted to public employees, whether state or federal. If
we're serious about an Emancipation Day holiday, we may truly have to
consider not adding it to the commonwealth's roster, therefore, but
substituting it for an existing holiday. If not Lee-Jackson Day, what
else might be dispensable? See
http://www.dhrm.state.va.us/calendar2006.pdf for the current list.
I'm serious about this. I really do think Emancipation Day/Juneteenth
is a terrific idea, a holiday that has real potential to advance both
public understanding of the commonwealth's past and the healing of some
of the wounds with which that past still afflicts us.
--Jurretta Heckscher
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