Holiday honoring Confederate generals swapped for Election Day in Virginia – By Ivan Pereira (ABC News) / Feb 6 2020
The state previously honored Election Day as a holiday through 1989.
Virginia is trying to move on from its Confederate past, voting Thursday to eliminate a state holiday honoring Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
The Virginia House of Delegates, which gained a Democratic majority this year after more than 20 years under GOP control, voted 55 to 42 in favor of the change. The Virginia Senate approved a similar bill, 22 to 18, last month, and Gov. Ralph Northam said he supports the measure.
The bill will swap Lee-Jackson Day for Election Day as a state holiday.
Lee-Jackson Day, which was celebrated on the Friday before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was created in 1899 to honor Lee. Jackson was added to the celebrations five years later.
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