Some Va-Roots subscribers recall back in 1980s and 1990s when Virginia had an official state holiday called Lee-Jackson-King Day. That mystified some Virginians and just about all non-Virginians. I well remember receiving puzzled messages asking, "Who was Lee Jackson King?"
Here is how it came about and how it disappeared.
In 1890, the General Assembly of Virginia designated 19 January, the birthday of Robert E. Lee, a public holiday. In 1904, the assembly changed the name of the holiday from Lee's Birthday to Lee-Jackson Day in order to honor Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, too. He was born on 21 January.
In 1970, the General Assembly directed that Lee-Jackson Day be the third Monday in January each year, creating a three-day holiday weekend, much as Congress did when moving the commemoration of George Washington's birthday (later President's Day) from the actual date of his birth to the third Monday in February.
In 1978, then-State Senator L. Douglas Wilder persuaded the General Assembly to create a state holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., but rather than commemorate King on his 15 January birthday or create another three-day holiday weekend, the assembly directed that 1 January, already a state and federal holiday, be Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Virginia.
In 1984, the General Assembly amended the code to observe both Lee-Jackson Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the third Monday in January to honor the three "defenders of causes," which is how that and the subsequent state laws respecting the holidays describe the three men. That created Virginia's Lee-Jackson-King Day and the mystification. Congress created an annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on the same third Monday in January beginning in 1986.
In 2000, the General Assembly directed that Lee-Jackson Day be separately commemorated on the Friday before the third Monday in January, detaching Lee-Jackson Day from the state and federal Martin Luther King Jr. Day holidays.
Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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