Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day

From Michelle Lancaster. Follow her and tell her your news on Twitter @MichLancaster or email her at [email protected].

This is the first King Day that the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is open — and it is worth visiting if you have yet to do so (and is still worth a return visit this weekend.) The Post’s Going Out Guide offers a range of activities and events for the weekend. I’d wager all are more appropriate than using the holiday to sell more beer, ahem — you know who you are.

In the neighborhood: At the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum, 1925 Vermont Avenue NW: Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance Program. Commemorate the contributions of this dynamic Civil Rights Activist at the African American Civil War Museum.  This event is free.

For those of you who have Monday off, I’d check out Bobby McFerrin’s “Let Freedom Ring” concert at the Kennedy Center. However you choose to honor Dr. King and his legacy, it will almost certainly be an improvement over how Virgina schoolchildren of my particular age grew up knowing the holiday… as Lee-Jackson-King Day.

Yes, as in Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Confederate generals in the Civil War. Their birthdays fell close to the day and I believe the particular story I was told was that it was already a holiday for them, and happened to coincide with the new King holiday so they just tacked it on – nothing personal (Wikipedia indicates I was lied to as a child.) I’ll close with noting it is now known on Virginia school calendars as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Sigh.