“If ever a state was at the center of the American war effort in World War II, it was Rhode Island,” Scott MacKay wrote in a 2010 RIPR essay. The need may have seemed obvious considering how much the war had affected the state. (It wasn’t until the late 1960s that the legislature changed the law to set the holiday on the second Monday in August.) Richard Windsor, a long-serving East Providence Republican, to designate Aug. Rhode Island established Victory Day in March 1948, almost three years after the end of World War II, when the General Assembly passed a bill sponsored by Rep. 14 deserves special attention for its interplay of state, local, national, and even international politics.” Senate report on the topic.)Īs far back as the 1950s, The New York Times declared that the holiday – which the paper, like many news outlets then and now, referred to as “V-J Day” – was “always a big legal holiday in Rhode Island.” In the “Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days,” author Len Travers remarks, “The tenacity of Rhode Island in celebrating Aug. (Some websites claim Victory Day used to be a federal holiday, too, but that appears to be a myth – there is no evidence for it in an authoritative 1999 U.S. Rhode Island has apparently been on its own since the late 1960s or ’70s, when Arkansas dropped its version of Victory Day – known there as “World War II Memorial Day” – and reportedly gave state workers their birthdays of as a consolation. 14, when Japan’s surrender was announced here, the holiday is now observed on the second Monday in August.Īnd yes, despite what many residents think, the legal name of Rhode Island’s holiday is and always has been Victory Day – not “V-J Day” (short for “Victory Over Japan”). While the actual event it commemorates happened on Aug. Monday is Rhode Island’s 70th annual Victory Day, continuing the state’s custom of being the only one that observes a legal holiday to mark the end of World War II. (WPRI) – Like Del’s Lemonade or Saugy dogs, Victory Day is a unique summertime tradition in the Ocean State.
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