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The origin of Martin Luther King Jr. Day began after his assassination in 1968. He was killed on a hotel balcony, as he was getting ready to make a speech. The birth of the reverend is observed as a federal holiday in the United States, around January 15th annually.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a nonviolent activist, the chief spokesman for the civil rights movement.
Ronald Reagan signed the law that made Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday in 1983, but the first observance was actually in 1986. Some states resisted to observe the holiday, gave it alternative names, like “Civil Rights Day,” or combined it with other holidays. Officially, it was finally observed in all of the 50 states of the union in 2000.
The day was promoted as a holiday by labor unions, and after his assassination, a union representative, John Conyers introduce a bill to Congress for the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. to be a national holiday. There was a vote for this bill in 1979, but it did not receive the number of votes it needed to pass. There were two arguments about the holiday, one being that another paid federal holiday would be very expensive, and the other was that the day would honor a private citizen. This was contrary to the tradition of honoring only people who had held a title in public office.
The next strategy was to take it to the corporate community and to the general public, and this was a success. Stevie Wonder, a popular musician, released “Happy Birthday,” in order to make the campaign more popular in 1980, and the law was passed in Congress.
When President Ronald Reagan signed the bill to create the federal holiday on November 2, 1983, it was to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. It was first observed as a federal holiday on January 20, 1986.
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