Martin Luther King Day
Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday in the United States that honors the life and achievements of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January, aligning with King's birthday on January 15. The holiday was established following a long campaign initiated after King's assassination in 1968, with significant advocacy from civil rights groups and public figures. The push for a national holiday gained momentum in the 1970s, highlighted by grassroots efforts, petitions, and support from key leaders, including President Jimmy Carter and King's widow, Coretta Scott King.
In 1983, after legislative voting and public advocacy, President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday bill into law, establishing Martin Luther King Day as a national observance starting in 1986. While some states initially resisted implementing the holiday, by the mid-1990s, all states recognized it. Additionally, the King Holiday and Service Act of 1994 designated the day as one of volunteer service, encouraging community engagement and reflection on King's legacy of social justice and equality.
Martin Luther King Day
Identification U.S. federal holiday
Date Established in 1986; celebrated each year on the third Monday in January
In 1986, the United States established a federal holiday celebrating the life and achievements of the internationally revered human rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King , Jr., in April, 1968, Democratic representative John Conyers of Michigan introduced legislation calling for the establishment of a national holiday commemorating the civil rights leader’s life and achievements. Congress failed to act on Conyers’s bill, despite the lobbying efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1971, when the organization presented Congress with three million signatures supporting the establishment of a national holiday in King’s honor. Civil rights activists continued to campaign for a King holiday throughout the 1970’s. Movement toward a King holiday progressed at the state level as well when, in 1973, Illinois became the first state to enact a King holiday law. Massachusetts and Connecticut enacted similar laws the following year, while a 1975 New Jersey State Supreme Court decision ruled that the state provide a paid holiday for state employees in honor of King.
By the late 1970’s, pressure on Congress to create a federal holiday intensified, with organized marches held in Washington, D.C., as well as lobbying by the King Center. President Jimmy Carter called on Congress to pass King holiday legislation in 1979, and King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, testified before joint hearings of Congress in support of the legislation. In 1980, Stevie Wonder released a hit song called “Happy Birthday” that celebrated King and promoted the King holiday movement. Two years later, Wonder and other activists presented more than six million signatures in support of a national holiday to Tip O’Neill of Massachusetts, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, in an effort to push for legislative action.
The King holiday bill, which proposed designating the third Monday of every January as a celebration of King’s January 15 birthday, passed the House of Representatives on a bipartisan vote of 338 to 90 in August, 1983. In October of that year, Democratic senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts sponsored a corresponding bill in the Senate, which, after a vigorous debate, passed by a vote of 78 to 22. Republican senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina opposed the legislation and had sought unsuccessfully to generate opposition to the proposed holiday by denouncing King’s anti-Vietnam War stance and by insisting that King had maintained communist connections. Despite his own misgivings, President Ronald Reagan signed the King holiday bill into law on November 3, 1983, establishing the third Monday of every January starting in 1986 as the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Holiday.
Impact
Several states, notably New Hampshire, Arizona, and Utah, resisted enacting corresponding King holidays for state employees and institutions. However, public pressure eventually resulted in all fifty states officially observing Martin Luther King Day. After Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act in 1994, Martin Luther King Day was additionally designated as a national day of volunteer service for Americans.
Bibliography
Dyson, Michael Eric. I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: The Free Press, 2000.
Hanson, Drew D. The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech That Inspired a Nation. New York: Ecco, 2003.