By Jack B. Westbrook

I remember our entire family coming over to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving. The entire family, on my mother’s side, would come over for the day. All of the kids and younger adult males would spend time outside playing football in the fall weather while the ladies made final preparations on the synergy that would become a succulent feast. I really don’t know what the older men did before the football games came on because I was usually outside with my cousins and younger uncles. I only knew where everyone was because I would sometimes be sent into the house during a break in the game to see how soon dinner would be ready. I would pass through the living room, where the men sat smoking and talking, on my way to the kitchen to check on the banquet’s status. Eventually we would be notified, and everyone would cram into the kitchen and overflow into the living room to hear the Thanksgiving blessing being said. We had learned in school that this tradition had something to do with Pilgrims and “Indians” getting together to eat in the fall, but I don’t think I really had a clue what this event was really all about back then.

A simple search of the Internet reveals there was a group of pilgrims who sailed to America, but we tend to think of pilgrims as the people with funny black hats and shoes with big buckles on both. The female pilgrims looked something similar to Amish ladies in black dresses today. However, pilgrims are simply travelers who are searching for religious freedom, and this was an important lesson to teach us in school because it is a momentous tenet of the United States’ doctrine of having no state-sanctioned religion. Our first President, George Washington, had even suggested that there be a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving, and Congress had agreed. Nevertheless, there was not a sanctioned national day until Lincoln instituted one on the fourth Thursday of every year in 1863. Prior to this, Jefferson had opposed it because he strongly believed in separation of church and state, and the presidents between him and Lincoln followed his lead. F.D. Roosevelt would later change the official date to the third Thursday in November in order to create more of a separation between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Many people, in different nations and cultures, celebrate the blessings of the fall harvest in different ways and have for a long time. Setting aside a day for people to celebrate and be thankful does not violate separation of church and state. If we were forced to do it, if we were obligated to acknowledge a certain god, or if we were required to do it in a certain way; then that would be a problem. The fact that we can be thankful according to our own customs is indeed something for which we can be grateful.