Tomorrow is still Martin Luther King Jr. day

here & in every state

When I was growing up, and all the way through high school, my home state of Virginia did not celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Instead, we stayed home from school on “Lee-Jackson-King Day,” a bizarre and offensive holiday honoring Confederate generals as well as our most significant and important activist for peace, justice, labor rights, and democracy. Virginia wasn’t the only state to balk at the national holiday’s rightful name—even New Hampshire called it “Civil Rights Day” until 1999. Ronald Reagan originally opposed the holiday. Two senators from North Carolina, Jesse Helms and John Porter East, led the opposition to the federal holiday, with Helms filibustering the bill. He claimed that Dr. King was both a communist and not important enough to merit a federal holiday. Alabama and Mississippi still use the holiday to honor Robert E. Lee as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., even though Dr. King visited, spoke, preached, and peacefully risked his life many times in both states, while Lee led a traitorous army in the deadliest war in American history.

Virginia ended their Lee-Jackson state holiday in 2020, replacing it with an election day holiday.

In North Carolina, Jesse Helms is buried in Raleigh’s Oakwood cemetery, where a camera is trained on his grave to deter people from peeing on it.

Dr. King and Coretta Scott King are buried at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Bea and I were able to visit it in 2022, along with a group of people from Alamance County (above is a photo of Bea at the reflecting pool.) This morning, one of those wonderful people sent me a note about a forthcoming book I have worked on with the writer, composer, and activist Sylvester Allen, Jr. Our friend Audra Faucette wrote to ask if we might include, in a selection she wrote for the book, this quote from Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

“One day the South will recognize its real heroes.” King was not talking about himself, of course, but about the legions of courageous, peaceful protesters, boycotters, and all those who stood up for “the best in the American dream.”

“I read the letter again today and this stood out because of who southern ‘heritage’ prefers to honor and who it chooses to ignore,” Audra wrote.

There are many ways to honor Dr. King that have nothing and everything to do with what is happening in D.C. tomorrow. You can reread Dr. King’s letter, as Audra did. You can visit the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, which is open tomorrow. You can cancel your Amazon prime membership, if you have one.

You can do something for the national day of service, happening everywhere people take action to help their community. We are joining the Rotary Club and Harriet’s scout troop tomorrow in Pittsboro to package hygiene kits and make cards and bracelets for victims of Hurricane Helene. I think we’ll also pick up trash along the river.

How about you, Frog Troublers? How will you spend tomorrow? Lots of love from us.