A History of an Honored Day

Monday of this week marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday established by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and first celebrated three years later in 1986. The story of how this holiday came to be is filled with enough twists and turns that it can serve to remind us of our Nation’s work to fulfill the promises laid out in our Constitution is not over. Here is an abridged history:

• Representative John Conyers introduced the first motion to make King’s birthday a federal holiday in 1968, just four days after King’s assassination in Memphis. It took another 11 years for the federal holiday to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives in 1979. The bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass, but it fell five votes short with a 252-133 count

• Following a march on Washington that included an estimated 500,000 people, Coretta Scott King, along with Stevie Wonder, presented a petition signed by 6 million people to House leader Tip O’Neill.

• The House took up the bill in 1983 and it passed by 53 votes. Democrats O’Neill and Jim Wright, along with Republicans Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich, gave speeches supporting the King holiday.

• The bill passed the Senate by just 12 votes. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina openly opposed it by introducing a filibuster followed by a 400-page file that accused King of being a communist. Senator Ted Kennedy criticized Helms and Senator Daniel Moynihan called the document “filth” and threw it on the Senate floor.

• President Ronald Reagan signed the bill in November 1983. The first federal King holiday was celebrated in 1986.

• The states were even slower in adopting the holiday. By 1986, only 17 states had adopted it.

• In Arizona, the King holiday was put up for an Arizona voter referendum in November 1990 after entertainers started boycotting the state, and the National Football League threatened to move the 1993 Super Bowl from Tempe.

• The King holiday lost in a two-part voter referendum and the NFL made good on its threat, taking the Super Bowl to Southern California and costing the state an estimated $500 million in revenue.

• Arizona voters approved the King holiday two years later.

• South Carolina approved a paid King holiday for state employees in 2000 but only after the governor had tried to link the holiday to a commitment to allow the state house to fly the Confederate battle flag. Instead, he signed a bill that approved the King holiday along with a Confederate Memorial Day celebrated in May. 

When we pause each January to consider Dr. King’s good works, it is not for us to remember the past. Rather, it is a call for us to carry on those good works today and each day. The strife is not over, and the battle is not won.

As always,
Bruce