Americans began celebrating George Washington’s birthday long before “Presidents’ Day” was an official holiday. In fact, they began marking the occasion while he was still alive—one of the earliest examples of a widespread celebration of an individuals birthday for any person whose name didn’t begin with “Saint” or “Pope” or “King.”

As Washington was celebrating his birthday in Philadelphia in 1797, Hercules Posey, the chef Washington enslaved, used the opportunity to flee from Washington’s control and escape to freedom.

A few years later in 1800, just two months after Washington died, his birthday transformed into a full-blown national holiday. Americans gathered to mourn his death while stores suspended business. Across the country, communities gathered to hear eulogies to Washington—and to purchase copies of his will. In cities big and small, local newspapers and printers published copies of Washington’s last will and testament, many of them including short biographical sketches. In that will, Washington freed the people he had for so long enslaved; it’s wide distribution ensured nearly all Americans learned of his deathbed emancipation.

This was just the beginning of the overlap between Washington’s birthday and discussions of slavery. During the lead-up to the Civil War, abolitionists took two different approaches to invoking Washington’s slave owning. Some celebrated his decision to emancipate the people he enslaved in the end—if Washington ended his ties to slavery, what could be more American than abolishing it? Other abolitionists, however, used withering criticism, reminding audiences countless times that Washington was “a slaveholder to the day of his death.”

But proslavery forces, too, claimed Washington and his legacy of slavery. When the Confederate States of America inaugurated its permanent government in Richmond, Virginia, in 1862, they did it on February 22—Washington’s birthday—beneath a towering statue of the man himself. Confederate President Jefferson Davis said their cause—the cause of slavery—was “fitly associated” with the day and setting.

Years later, following the passage of the 13th amendment finally abolishing the institution of slavery, northern communities celebrated a long-sought victory. In Newburyport, Massachusetts, home of famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, they delayed their celebration by a few weeks to hold it on Washington’s birthday.

One of the most notable links between Washington’s birthday and discussions of his ties to slavery occurred in 1932, on what would be been Washington’s 200th birthday. By the twentieth century, Washington’s birthday had become a full-blown national holiday—and had often become split from any real interest in history. The image above, offering a sale on dry cleaning services, is from the Alexandria Gazette in 1929.

The federal government tried to reintroduce a more factual, more historical Washington for his “bicentennial.” They established an official (though entirely white) planning commission. They organized a year-long, nationwide commemoration, printing millions of articles, posters, pageants, school curricula, and more to help reacquaint Americans with the “real” George Washington. Yet nowhere in this exploration of his life and legacy did they raise the issue of slavery.

It was left to Black Americans to step into the gap. Activists, educators, and newspaper editors ensured that Washington’s views on race and slavery would be of this occasion. Carter G. Woodson, founder of what is now Black History Month, renowned scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, and others published essays, books, speeches, and more, emphasizing the central place of slavery in Washington’s life and calling out white planners’ efforts to avoid it. The Baltimore Afro-American, one of the nation’s most prominent Black newspapers, spent years leading up to the anniversary publishing shocking headlines like “GEORGE WASHINGTON, SLAVE DRIVER.”

These are just a few examples. Americans have been arguing over how to understand slavery’s place in George Washington’s legacy for more than two centuries, and that is never on clearer display than Washington’s birthday.

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