“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” states one of the most well-known activists in the United States today, Martin Luther King Junior.
MLK (Martin Luther King) Jr. Day is a United States federal holiday that occurs on the third Monday of January every year. MLK Day celebrates the birthday and achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist who fought for equality and ended racial segregation throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The fight to make Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday a holiday took 32 years and a lot of campaigning. King’s birthday was finally approved as a federal holiday in 1983, and all 50 states made it a state government holiday by the year 2000.
Legislation making Martin Luther King, Jr., Day a federal holiday in the United States was passed in 1983, and the first nationwide observance took place in 1986.
Representative John Conyers first introduced the motion to make King’s birthday a federal holiday in 1968 only four days after King’s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. It took an additional 11 years for the federal holiday to come up for a vote on the House of Representatives floor in 1979.
The House took up the bill in 1983 and it passed by 53 votes. But getting the bill passed in the Senate would be contentious. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina openly opposed it. At first, Helms introduced a filibuster, and then he presented a 400-page file that accused King of being a communist. Despite Helms, the bill passed the Senate by 12 votes.
It took longer for the 50 states to adopt the holiday. By 1986, 17 states had already adopted it. However, there was strong resistance in Arizona to passing a state holiday. The fight between state legislators came to a head when the King holiday was put up for an Arizona voter referendum in November 1990. At that point, people had started boycotting the state in protest, and the National Football League threatened to move the 1993 Super Bowl from Tempe if the holiday was defeated at the polls.
Today, the King holiday serves multiple purposes: It honors the total legacy of the King; focuses on the issue of civil rights; highlights the use of nonviolence to promote change; and calls people into public service.
This year, Highlands does not have school in celebration and remembrance of King occurring on Monday, January 15th.
Sophomore Audrey Sorrentino said, “I think MLK day is really important as we need to continue to be kind to one another and treat each other as equals with respect.”