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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