When do the Southern states observe Memorial Day?
Women’s groups in several Deep South communities are credited with founding Memorial Day in April 1866. During the years after the war, the idea took hold throughout the country; in the South different dates were observed in different states. The Deep South usually observed the holiday on April 26, the anniversary of General Joseph E. Johnston’s surrender in North Carolina; North and South Carolina usually chose May 10, the date of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s death, and Jefferson Davis’ capture. Virginians in the 1880s began celebrating Confederate Memorial Day on the day (May 30) that had emerged already as a national Memorial Day. After former president Davis’ death in 1889, some states observed the holiday on his birthday, June 3. Eight states still observe “Confederate Memorial Day”: Florida and Georgia on April 26; South and North Carolina on May 10; Alabama on the last Monday in April; Mississippi on the fourth Monday in April; and Kentucky and Louisiana on June 3.
