![]() 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” – none successful. “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, and a local Chamber of Commerce official called it “embarrassing.” At one point the Rhode Island Japan Society hired lawyers to press a case against the name. However, by the mid-1980s – with Japan’s economic might growing – there was rising controversy about whether continuing to celebrate Victory Day was appropriate. Rhode Island was always an outlier: in 1953 the AP was already describing it as “the only state in the union that voted to make V-J a legal holiday,” though two years later the news service acknowledged, “Arkansas celebrates the anniversary also, but as World War II Memorial Day.” (Two decades later, in 1966, the legislature changed the law to set the holiday’s observance on the second Monday in August.) Richard Windsor, a long-serving East Providence Republican, to make Aug. Victory Day was established here three years after World War II ended, in March 1948, 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,” Len Travers writes in the “Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days.” As far back as the 1950s, The New York Times declared that the holiday – which it called “V-J Day” – was “always a big legal holiday in Rhode Island.” “The tenacity of Rhode Island in celebrating Aug. (Many 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. ![]() 14.Īnd yes, despite what many residents think, the official name of Rhode Island’s holiday has always been Victory Day – not “V-J Day.”Įxperts say Rhode Island has been on its own since 1975, when Arkansas dropped its version of the holiday – dubbed “World War II Memorial Day” there – and reportedly gave state workers their birthdays off as a consolation. 14, when Japan’s surrender was announced, but the holiday is always observed on the second Monday in August this is a rare year when the date of observance actually falls on Aug. The actual event it commemorates happened on Aug. Monday is the 69th annual Victory Day in Rhode Island, making the state once again the only one to observe a legal holiday marking the end of World War II. (WPRI) – Like Del’s or Saugy dogs, Victory Day is a unique Rhode Island tradition every summer.
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