Alabama and Mississippi will also honor Robert E. Lee on Martin Luther King Jr. Day [View all]
Source: AP
Updated 5:08 AM EST, January 19, 2025
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. is set to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the federal holiday set aside to honor the life of the civil rights icon. But in Alabama and Mississippi, Monday is also Robert E. Lee Day in honor of the Confederate general.
The two states recognize King and Lee on the third Monday in January. Their state governments created holidays more than a century ago to honor Lee and later combined the day with the federal holiday established in the 1980s to honor King. The strange juxtaposition of honoring men from vastly different legacies has persisted for decades.
How it happened
Both men have January birthdays. Lee was born Jan. 19, 1807. King was born Jan. 15, 1929. In the years after the Civil War, white politicians in southern states created multiple holidays to honor Confederate leaders and dead Confederate soldiers. Alabama lawmakers in 1901 named a January state holiday for Lee. Mississippi did the same in 1910.
President Ronald Reagan in 1983 signed legislation naming the third Monday of January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day to honor the slain civil rights leader. States slowly added the day to their roster of state holidays. Alabama and Mississippi in the 1980s adopted Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday, adding it to their existing day honoring Lee. Some other southern states at one time also had a joint holiday, but have ended that practice, leaving only Alabama and Mississippi with a single day honoring both King and Lee.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/martin-luther-king-jr-holiday-alabama-mississippi-0f535594cf50af7103ca2d953e1bc9a1
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