On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed law marking the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made it a national holiday.
The day of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has become one of our major holidays as we continue to strive for racial equality, just like Dr. King as the most admired leader of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
None of our nation’s civil rights were easily won. All have required struggle and perseverance. Even creating a national holiday in honor of Dr. King was a tough campaign that took many years to complete, with heavy resistance and many setbacks.
Two black leaders, Republican Senator Edward Brooke from Massachusetts and Democratic Congressman John Conyers from Michigan, proposed the creation of a national holiday to honor Dr. King within four weeks of his senseless murder on April 4, 1968.
In the face of sustained opposition, this bipartisan proposal was not put to the vote until 1979, when it was five votes below the number required to pass in the US House of Representatives.
The opponents justified their resistance to a day by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saying that creating another paid vacation for federal employees was too expensive for the national government and its ever-increasing debt. Others claimed that only distinguished elected officials such as Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln deserved such honor. Southern opponents, led by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, claimed that King was a Communist sympathizer and opposed the Vietnam War.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day advocates recognized these arguments as obvious excuses to defame the civil rights leader and his legacy. After all, Christopher Columbus is honored with a national holiday despite never being a U.S. civil servant, and the federal government spends millions on far more frivolous pork barrel laws.
Helms’ 300-page public holiday document by Martin Luther King Jr. was found in a smear campaign that began long before Dr. King’s assassination had started when dismissed as a “filthy package”.
Although action at the national level has dragged on, several local governments over the years have found it appropriate to ask Dr. Honor King. In 1973, on the fifth anniversary of his death, the Albuquerque City Council created a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as did Mayor Bill McNichols of Denver that same year. But these were local events that were only occasionally thought of.
Efforts to create a national Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. days finally took off in the early 1980s. Respected musician Stevie Wonder released a popular song in support of a new vacation. Millions spoke to the lyrics and sang the lyrics:
Against anyone who takes offense
On a day in your celebration.
Because we all know in our minds
That there should be a time
To show how much we love you …
To mark the fallen leader’s birthday celebration on January 15, 1981, protesters held a nonviolent march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Six million Americans signed a petition urging Congress to finally act. It is said to be the largest petition ever submitted to Washington, DC lawmakers
A bill to create a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was put to the vote in Congress in 1983, the 15th anniversary of his death. The law was passed in the House of Representatives from 338-90. In a final attempt to sink the proposal, Senator Helms attempted a filibuster but failed when the Senate passed Bill 78-22. President Reagan signed the bill within two weeks. The nation first celebrated its new holiday on January 20, 1986.
Most states followed suit and created national holidays of equal value. But others resisted. While New Mexico passed the holiday in 1987, neighboring Arizona refused until 1992 after the state lost millions of dollars in profits when the National Football League protested by canceling its Super Bowl, which was due to be played in Phoenix.
South Carolina didn’t create a state until 2000. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, making it the last of our 50 states to do so. South Carolina and four other southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Virginia – made the holidays worse by celebrating them on the same day with Confederate heroes like General Robert E. Lee. In South Carolina, government employees had the annual opportunity to study at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day or on one of three Confederate holidays.
Like most advances in the civil rights movement, the creation of a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. controversial and extremely slow. But as Dr. King, his supporters had a goal and thanks to their tenacity and determination, it was finally realized.
Richard Melzer, Ph.D.
The day of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. survives, itself a reminder of our nation’s continued pursuit of racial justice and mutual respect.
(The annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Solidarity and Candlelight Vigil, sponsored by the Mutli Cultural Commission of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of the City of Belen, was held this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic canceled. Please keep this in mind and try to stick to the Commission’s motto: Live the dream; Let freedom ring; Build bridges for unity and understanding.)
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