Then there was Senator Jesse Helms R-NC , who filibustered against the bill that would create MLK day and argued that King shouldn't be celebrated with a nationally recognized day because, Helms said, he was a communist. King's action-oriented Marxism, about which he was cautioned by the leaders of this country, including the president at that time, is not compatible with the concepts of this country".
The idea that Dr. King was a communist indeed became part of the debate, a part which former President Reagan was asked about. During one news conference, when asked by a reporter whether he agreed with former Sen.
Helms, Reagan replied "Well, we'll know in about 35 years, won't we? The answer was an allusion to the fact that FBI files related to Dr. King weren't at the time set to be released for decades.
Reagan would eventually call Coretta Scott King Dr. King's widow to apologize and clarify that he meant no offense. He was an advocate of non-violent protest and became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
He was assassinated in In , shortly after Martin Luther King died, a campaign was started for his birthday to become a holiday to honor him. After the first bill was introduced, trade unions lead the campaign for the federal holiday.
It was endorsed in Following support from the musician Stevie Wonder with his single "Happy Birthday" and a petition with six million signatures, the bill became law in Martin Luther King Day was first observed in , although it was not observed in all states until the year While we diligently research and update our holiday dates, some of the information in the table above may be preliminary.
If you find an error, please let us know. Robert E. It honors civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. Sign in. Is Martin Luther King Jr.
Lee Day, which honors the Confederate general, in Alabama and Mississippi. While the nation recognizes King as an "icon for democracy" today, in the s and s, he was still a controversial figure , according to Michael Honey, an American historian and professor of humanities at University of Washington, Tacoma.
On April 8, , Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. The next year, on Jan. It called for nationwide ceremonies and began working to gain support for the holiday. Martin Luther King Jr. In the s, support for a national Martin Luther King Jr.
Several states, including Illinois, Massachusetts and Connecticut, become the first states to enact statewide King holidays, but Congress failed to act on a national level, according to The King Center. Not everyone was on board, and the bill was defeated by five votes in the House in November The song became a hit, and in the early s, Wonder worked with Coretta Scott King to gain support for the national holiday, according to the King Center.
In , King and Wonder delivered a petition with 6 million signatures in favor of the holiday to the speaker of the House.
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