In recent years, peace activists have counterprogrammed with an event in Jamestown remembering the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Ed DiPrete tried to transform Victory Day into Governor’s Bay Day, and lawmakers made multiple attempts to rename it “Rhode Island Veteran’s Day” or “Peace and Remembrance Day” – all unsuccessful. “I think it is nice for people to have a holiday, but they should call it something else.” “Because I am Japanese, I have always felt uneasy about going outside on that day,” she said. Hiroko Shikashio, a North Providence resident of Japanese descent, told The New York Times in 1990 she felt uncomfortable leaving the house on Victory Day. Japanese officials said the holiday was harming trade between the two nations a local Chamber of Commerce official called it “embarrassing.” At one point the Rhode Island Japan Society even hired lawyers to press a case against the name. Such complaints only grew over subsequent years as the war receded further into the past.īy the mid-1980s there was rising controversy about whether it was appropriate to continue celebrating Victory Day in light of growing economic ties between the U.S. “When will Rhode Island, compelled to observe the day as a holiday, remember those who made the supreme sacrifice?” the paper asked. Later in the ’50s, a Daily News editorial complained of “general apathy” surrounding Victory Day. In 1951, just six years after the end of the war, the Newport Daily News reported that Victory Day was generally “observed in Sunday fashion, most people heading for the beaches or taking an afternoon ride,” and veterans groups complained about a lack of parade attendance. The local manufacturing industry went into overdrive supplying everything from ships and blankets to medals.Įfforts have always been made to remind Rhode Islanders of the reason for the holiday, but frequently in vain. Bush – all did some of their training in the state. The Navy had a huge presence in Rhode Island during World War II, and three future presidents – John F. “During World War II, Rhode Island was an armed camp,” Christian McBurney and Brian Wallin argue in a recent book about the state during the war. Patrick Conley, the state’s historian laureate. “From Westerly to Woonsocket and everywhere in between, Rhode Island was focused on winning what has become known as, in Studs Terkel’s famous words, ‘The Good War.’”Ībout 92,000 Rhode Island residents served in the war – more than one in ten – and almost 2,200 of them were killed, according to Dr. “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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