Celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.

DID YOU KNOW??

WHO

King was the chief spokesperson for non-violent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law.

WHAT

Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.) is an American Federal holiday. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around King’s birthday, January 15.

WHEN

The campaign for a federal holiday in King’s honor began soon after his assassonation in 1968. President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed three years later. At first, some states resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays. It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.

HOW

The idea of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday was promoted by labor unions in contract negotiations. After King’s death, U.S. Representative John Conyers (a Democrat from Michigan) and U.S. Senator Edward Brooke (a Republican from Massachusetts) introduced a bill in Congress to make King’s birthday a national holiday. The bill first came to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979. However, it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage. Two of the main arguments mentioned by opponents were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to longstanding tradition (King had never held public office). Only two other figures have national holidays in the U.S. honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

Soon after, support from the corporate community and the general public were enlisted. The success of this strategy was cemented when musician Stevie Wonder hosted the Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981. Six million signatures were collected for a petition to Congress to pass the law, termed by a 2006 article in The Nation as “the largest petition in favor of an issue in U.S. history.”

-credit Wikipedia