My family recently moved to Alabama and I was both confused and shocked to discover on my sister's school calendar that January 15th is listed as a school holiday in honor of Robert E. Lee Day. There was no mention of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the day most federal institutions are celebrating. This confusion led me to do some investigating into Robert E. Lee Day and I must ask Alabama to please stop the holiday or at the very least change the date it is celebrated.
Lee, a Virginia native, was a commander and general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Regarded as a southern hero, the third Monday of January was designated as Robert E. Lee day in several southern states starting as early as the 1880s to celebrate the general's January 19th birthday.
In 1989, Congress declared that the third Monday of January would honor Martin Luther King Jr. (born January 15th), the civil rights activist and martyr. This caused a problem for several southern states who were already using that Monday to celebrate Robert E. Lee Day. But slowly every state that celebrated the holiday either moved the day or stopped celebrating it altogether, except for Alabama and Mississippi. Currently, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas are the only states that still put Robert E. Lee Day on their calendars, although Arkansas passed a law last year that moved the day to the second Monday in October, making Alabama and Mississippi the only two states to celebrate a combination Lee-Luther Day.
While many proponents and defendants of Robert E. Lee Day and its day of celebration argue that the day is about states' rights and honoring state pride, no one can deny the fact that Robert E. Lee, though not a slave owner or a horribly racist person himself, was crucial in aiding a nation's attempt to secede in large part so that they could continue to own and trade slaves without government interference. Though slavery was not the only cause of the Civil War, it was a major contribution and is the root of the deeply set racism and severe violations of civil rights that exist to this day in many southern states.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a great champion of civil rights who fought against systemic oppression in the south and was murdered for his brave actions and success. He is a national hero worthy of a federal holiday and it is offensive to combine his day with that of a Civil War general. Though I personally wouldn't celebrate Robert E. Lee Day on any day, I understand why some southern states choose to still honor it. Those states are within their right to continue the holiday, but they could at the very least move it. A man who fought for the right to own slaves should not be celebrated on the same day as a man who died fighting for racial equality.
