Plus I don’t think they gave them the day off, they just took it.
Way back before MLK was an actual federal holiday, blacks where I used to work in a factory just didn’t show up that day, but nobody dared to say anything about it............................
I went to a high school that had about 30% Jews. New teachers were told to never schedule a test on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah.
I don’t work on my birthday. One year corporate BS denied me vacation on birthday, I was grumpy but I was going to comply. But the day before my boss came up to me and said “you don’t look so good, you should probably take tomorrow off”. Good boss.
We don’t work @#$%. If you want to take a random day off do it. If they want to give you a random day off enjoy it, but don’t be grateful, cause they don’t deserve that.