(Earlier post updated 2/12/2026)
“Presidents Day” weekend is upon us. But it isn’t really “Presidents Day.”
So What Day Is it After All?
Okay. We all do it. It is printed on calendars and posted in bank windows. We mistakenly call the third Monday in February Presidents Day, in part because of all those commercials in which George Washington swings his legendary ax and “Rail-splitter” Abe Lincoln hoists his ax to chop down prices on everything from mattresses and linens to SUVs.
But, this February holiday is officially still George Washington’s Birthday.
I wrote My Project About Presidents in 3rd Grade when I was 9. Even then I was asking questions about history and presidents
Washington’s Birthday has become widely known as Presidents Day (or President’s Day, or Presidents’ Day). The popular usage and confusion resulted from the merging of what had been two widely celebrated Presidential birthdays in February —Lincoln’s on February 12th, which was never a federal holiday– and Washington’s on February 22, which was.
Created under the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, which gave us three-day weekend Monday holidays, the federal holiday on the third Monday in February is technically still Washington’s Birthday. But here’s the rub: the holiday can never land on Washington’s true birthday because the latest date it can fall is February 21, as it did in 2011.
But we cannot discuss the presidency or much of United States history without discussing the role that slavery played in the foundation and establishment of the republic.
And that is why this year is so different. The current administration is eradicating much of that history in an effort to sanitize American history. Recently, the Park Service used crowbars to remove references to Washington’s role as an enslaver as president in Philadelphia. That is part of a much larger effort to rewrite American history and remove some of the stubborn facts about America’s past. It is taking place in national parks, historical museums and even the service academies.
Read “How the National Park Service is Deleting American History” (New York Times)
This attempt to control the past is a tactic of the Strongman. To control the past is to control the present and future.
READ MY ARTICLE in Social Education: “The American Contradiction: Conceived in Liberty, Born in Shackles”
George Washington’s role as an enslaver is fully explored in my book IN THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives. 
There is a wealth of information about the First President at his home Mount Vernon.
Washington’s Tomb — Mt. Vernon (Photo credit Kenneth C. Davis 2010)
And read more about the creation of the Presidency, George Washington, his life, and administration in DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT® THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS. Washington’s role in the American Revolution is also highlighted in Chapter One of THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR.
The Hidden History of America At War (paperback)
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
