ODESSA, Texas — February 19, 2024 is President's Day, a day that honors all of the presidents who have sat in the Oval Office.
The day was first created to honor George Washington on his birthday, but the federal government made some tweaks to the law.
“In 1879 a law was passed celebrating Washington's birthday on February 22," UTPB Associate History Professor and Dean of Student Success Dr. Michael Frawley said. "That was his actual birthday and all the way up through the 1960's, it was celebrated as a federal holiday. They had the federal government passed a new law to reorganize certain holidays instead of having them on specific days. They put them onto specific Mondays to give people a long weekend.”
According to Dr. Frawley, when the 1968 law was passed, there was a movement within Congress to change Washington’s birthday to President’s Day. The movement didn't pass.
Each state celebrates the day differently, but many have agreed that it has gone from a celebration of just Washington to a celebration of all the presidents, no matter how good or bad they were.
“We’ve got to be conscious of our history and we’ve got to remember where we are today," Dr. Frawley said. "Each president builds on the legacy of the president before that. We've got to recognize what those leaders did understand why they did what they did, and then how those things have repercussions for us today.”
Each president has done their part to help shape American History in their own way. For the country to keep growing, it's important to take a look back and learn from our history.
"It is about the evolution of a society. It talks to the story that we want to tell our grandkids and our great grandkids," Ellen Noel Art Museum Executive Director Sheia Perry said. "We need to know our past and learn from it so we can inform our future. So we need to celebrate what was good and we need to acknowledge what wasn't good."
Some states also choose to celebrate individual presidents, depending on how important they were to the state's history.
As for the future of President's Day and whose legacies will get remembered on this holiday, it all depends on who gets voted into the Oval Office in the coming decades.