established in its most recent form in 2000
, first observed Friday, 12 January 2001
When Virginia started observing Martin Luther King Day in 1985, it was faced with a problem; the long-standing state holiday honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Virginia natives and Confederate generals in the Civil War, occupied the same day as the national MLK Day (this year, 15 January 2001). So, the compromise was to combine the two into Lee-Jackson-King Day, one of the strangest sets of co-habitants you might ever find.
Needless to say, this made some people pretty upset. Finally in 2000, the General Assembly moved the Lee and Jackson honors to the Friday before MLK day. State workers don't mind it at all; it creates a four-day weekend for them.