Virginia Senate votes to eliminate Lee-Jackson Day, create new Election Day holiday [View all]
Source: Washington Post
Virginia Politics
Virginia Senate votes to eliminate Lee-Jackson Day, create new Election Day holiday
By Laura Vozzella
Jan. 21, 2020 at 3:52 p.m. EST
RICHMOND — The Virginia Senate on Tuesday voted to scrap a state holiday honoring two Confederate generals and create a new holiday on Election Day, another tremor in the Democratic earthquake rattling the former capital of the Confederacy.
Senators voted 22-18 to do away with the Lee-Jackson holiday, with every Democrat and one Republican, Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant (Henrico), in favor. The bill now heads to the House.
For more than a century, Virginia has set aside a day in January to honor Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The General Assembly made Jan. 19, Lee’s birthday, a holiday in 1890. In 1904, it turned the holiday Lee-Jackson Day, adding Jackson, who was born Jan. 21.
In the mid-1980s, the legislature added the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the mix, billing “Lee-Jackson-King Day” as an homage to “defenders of causes.” King’s holiday was separated from the other two in 2000.
....
Laura Vozzella
Laura Vozzella covers Virginia politics for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she was a political columnist and food writer at the Baltimore Sun, and she has also worked for the Associated Press, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Hartford Courant. Follow https://twitter.com/LVozzella
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-senate-votes-to-eliminate-lee-jackson-day-create-new-election-day-holiday/2020/01/21/6eb8fea2-3c73-11ea-8872-5df698785a4e_story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
