Martin Luther King Day being celebrated since 1986

Monday, Jan. 18, 2021, is a Federal holiday, honoring the life and memory of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., throughout the United States, as “Martin Luther King Day.”

Littlefield’s Lamb County Librarian, Candy Seth, has put together an informational bulletin board of Reverend King and events of his life.

Everyone should stop by and take a look at it, as it’s very informative, and Candy did an excellent job with it.

Officially, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, but it is always observed on the third Monday of January, each year. It took a fight to make King’s birthday a holiday, and it actually took 32 years to achieve.

The campaign for a federal holiday in Rev. King’s honor began soon after his assassination in Memphis, Tenn. in 1968, and the efforts to make this a holiday began actually four days after the assassination.

John Conyers was the first to introduce the very first motion, and it took another 11 years for the Federal Holiday to come up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1979. Still yet, the bill needed the majority vote to even pass, and it sadly fell five votes short with a 252-133 margin count. This was despite the organized strong effort from the “King Center” and even with support from Congress members, and President Jimmy Carter.

During all the years it was still quite a continual effort to make King’s birthday into a National Holiday. There was a lot of campaigning done, and many guests’ appearances everywhere from Ted Kennedy, to The National Football League, to even Stevie Wonder.

The House took up the Bill in 1983, and it made it through by it’s passing the House vote with 53 votes, after which it went to the Senate when Senator Jesse Helms, of North Carolina opposed it and tried to introduce a filibuster. He also introduced a 400-page file of various accusations.

Despite Senator Helms, the bill passed the Senate by 12 votes, and President Ronald Reagan signed the bill in November of 1983. Following that, the first actual Federal Martin Luther King, Jr Holiday was celebrated in 1986.

In the beginning, some states resisted observing his holiday, and they would give it different names or they would try to combine it with other holidays, but it was finally “Officially observed in ALL 50 States” for the very first time in 2000.

Today, the Reverend King Holiday serves many purposes, and it honors the King legacy by focusing on the use of non-violence to promote all change, and it also focuses on civil rights.

So this Monday, may all of us stop for a few minutes, and take time to focus on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and what he tried to teach everyone throughout his life.