A day for Abe

On Jan. 19, students won’t traipse to class in the wintery weather. They’ll stay in and enjoy a day off. IU will shut down Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Since we were young, we’ve heard the stories and the speeches. King was a great man, one of the most significant figures in American history. Without his dedication to civil rights, today’s world could be vastly different. King led a revolution in our country to rid it of an evil much greater than any most of us have ever dealt with. All of us, regardless of race, should be thankful for the sacrifices he made to guarantee a better future for our generation. King died trying to better the United States of America. He died fighting the tedious battle for true equality.

But he wasn’t the only one.

One hundred and three years prior to the day America witnessed King’s assassination, President Abraham Lincoln was murdered at Ford’s Theatre. The events of that night can be found in our history textbooks, perhaps just a few chapters before King’s time.

“Four score and seven years ago” is etched into our memories right beside “I have a dream.”

Lincoln’s historical presidency was probably the greatest our country will ever witness.
He freed the slaves and began pushing our society down the road that King would tread a century later. Without Abraham Lincoln, King may have never had the opportunity to revolutionize our society, because he may never have had the opportunity to act as a free man.

On Feb. 16, attendance will be taken in the lecture halls. Many students will go about their day never knowing its significance. IU does not shut down for President’s Day, the only federal holiday that has any relevance to Abraham Lincoln.

Ironically, the holiday was originally dedicated to George Washington. Many states who observed Lincoln’s birthday made President’s Day a “joint” holiday, and began to also celebrate Lincoln on this date. There has never been a federal holiday made exclusively in Abraham Lincoln’s honor.

King and Lincoln, in different ways, changed America for African-Americans. An argument about which figure was more successful in doing so would be irrelevant and probably impossible to conclude.

Why, then, does our calendar seem to make this decision for us? Why has our country failed to set aside a day in remembrance of a man so important to our history?

Furthermore, why does our university not recognize the closest thing we have to a holiday celebrating Lincoln?

Creating a federal holiday would undoubtedly take a lot of time and paperwork. But recognizing a day already in place, however vaguely it may celebrate Lincoln, wouldn’t require much of our school.

King made his most famous speech on the steps of a monument bearing a statue of Abraham Lincoln. He said the Emancipation Proclamation was a “great beacon light of hope” for the slaves.

King commemorated the sixteenth President. It’s time IU did, too.