Fraternal Day Fraternal Day Fraternal Day is a legal holiday in the state of Alabama in the United States. It is celebrated annually on the second Monday in October on the same day as Columbus Day and American Indian Heritage Day. Fraternal Day was originally celebrated in Alabama on the second Thursday of October beginning in 1915. In 1915, The Fraternal Monitor, published by the National Fraternal Congress of America, included notes regarding a Fraternal Day celebration to be held April 22 in San Francisco. Fraternal Day Chairman Dempster personally invited President Woodrow Wilson and the Monitor promoted it as "the greatest
Columbus Day organization, the Knights of Columbus. Some anti-Catholics, notably including the Ku Klux Klan and the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, opposed celebrations of Columbus or monuments about him because they thought that it increased Catholic influence in the United States, which was largely a Protestant country. By far the more common opposition today, decrying both Columbus' and other Europeans' actions against the indigenous populations of the Americas, did not gain much traction until the latter half of the 20th century. This opposition was led by Native Americans and expanded upon by left-wing political parties, though it has become more