Even Richmond, Virginia’s capital and the capital of the South for most of the Civil War, doesn’t shut down its city government for Lee-Jackson Day. As a state senator in 2016, McEachin introduced a measure to end Lee-Jackson Day as a state holiday and instead make Election Day a holiday. But even as he rallies to keep Lee-Jackson Day a holiday, he recognizes it is imperiled. “The only thing that’s going to save Lee-Jackson Day, memorials and everything else is when the country itself realizes that if you start this purge of history, it has no logical conclusion.”The history of the Lee-Jackson holiday is tangled. In 1904, the Assembly made the holiday Lee-Jackson Day, adding Jackson, who was born Jan. 21.

Source: Washington Post January 11, 2018 21:40 UTC