2. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Born on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. achieved national prominence in 1955, when he led the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. In 1960 King was chosen to head the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, giving him the organizational base he needed to extend his campaign for civil rights throughout the South. He organized many protests and marches, among them the August 1963 “March on Washington”, at which he delivered his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Throughout his life he practiced nonviolent resistance and advocated peaceful protest against his country’s segregationist practices. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. He had come to Memphis to help organize a strike of the city’s sanitation workers, most of whom were black. He was shot while standing on the balcony outside his motel room. The assassination sparked riots in 120 American cities that year and led to a tremendous increase in the kind of violence that King had worked for more than a decade to prevent.

Eight days later, U.S. Representative John Conyers from Michigan called for a federal holiday honoring Dr. King. Atlanta was the first city to designate King’s birthday as a paid holiday for city employees in 1971, and in 1973, Illinois became the first state to declare January 15 a statewide holiday. On January 15, 1981, which would have been King’s fifty-second birthday, more than 100 000 people gathered at the Washington Monument to rally for a national holiday. Legislation was finally passed by Congress in 1983 setting aside the third Monday in January to honor King. This day is only the tenth national holiday approved by Congress, and it is the only one honoring an American other than past U.S. presidents.

“I Have a Dream” Speech

The speech he delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., on August 28, 1963, almost immediately became a symbol of the civil rights movement. It was heard by an audience of 250 000 who had assembled there during the famous March on Washington to win the support of Congress and the president for pending civil rights legislation. When King wasassassinated five years later, the speech became a symbol of his lifelong effort to end segregation through nonviolent means. Excerpts from the “I Have a Dream” speech are still broadcast on television and radio around the time of the King Holiday. It is often accompanied by the singing of “We Shall Overcome”, widely regarded as the theme song of the civil rights movement.