Snail Mail

I spotted this map stationary on Polly's lovely blog, Poor Couture (which, I should warn you, is full of all sorts of fun and eye-catching goodies). This envelope and letter paper set caught my eye because I totally had one just like it as a kid! In this era of GPS and email, it now strikes me as very quaint.

Happy Independence Day!

Yesterday my brother emailed me the text of President Lyndon Johnson's remarks at the signing of the Hart Cellar Act, writing: "So, Dad was able to come to the US in 1969 as a result of the Hart-Cellar Act (also called the INS Act of 1965). It abolished the national-origin quotas that had previously existed. I came across President Lyndon Johnson's remarks at the signing of the bill in New York on October 3, 1965, and thought they were pretty good." I agree. Here are a few highlights of the remarks Johnson made on Liberty Island more than 40 years ago (the full text of the speech can be found on the LBJ Library's website):

Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide. The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources--because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples. And from this experience, almost unique in the history of nations, has come America's attitude toward the rest of the world. We, because of what we are, feel safer and stronger in a world as varied as the people who make it up--a world where no country rules another and all countries can deal with the basic problems of human dignity and deal with those problems in their own way.

Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American Nation returns to the finest of its traditions today. The days of unlimited immigration are past. But those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they sprung. When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so?

And so it has been through all the great and testing moments of American history.

Remember Lee-Jackson-King Day?

Today's post is devoted to the history of the now-defunct holiday observed in the fine state of Virginia throughout my grade-school days: Lee-Jackson-King Day! As the hyphenation (which, in my mind's eye, I can still see squashed onto the school lunch menu in smudgy Xeroxed 8 or 9 pt all-caps Courier) suggests, this unique invention of the Old Dominion honored the birthdays of Civil War generals Robert E. Lee (January 19, 1807) and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824), and Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929) all in one go. How did this happen? From Wikipedia:

Robert E. Lee's birthday has been celebrated as a Virginia holiday since 1889. In 1904, the legislature added the birthday of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to the holiday, and Lee-Jackson Day was born. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan approved an Act of Congress declaring January 15 to be a national holiday in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Since 1978, Virginia had celebrated King's birthday in conjunction with New Year's Day. To align with the federal holiday, the Virginia legislature simply combined King's celebration with the existing Lee-Jackson holiday.

In 2001 -- more than a decade after Virginia elected the country's first black governor -- state legislature did away with the three-way celebration, relegating Lee-Jackson day to the Friday before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In 2007, the state formally expressed "profound regret" for Virginia's role in the slave trade. Today? It seems the observation of MLK Day is alive and well in Virginia. As is the observation of Lee-Jackson Day. Separate but no less problematic.