Randi Rhodes: Not Just a Holiday

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was 39 years old when an assassin’s bullet robbed him and us of the rest of his life on April 4, 1968.

The a bill to establish a federal holiday in honor of Dr. King was introduced in the House by still-serving Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) just four days after the shooting – it didn’t receive a floor vote until 1979; it didn’t pass until 1983. In fact, that the bill survived at all is due in large part to 15 years of labor union members, most but not all African-American, risking their jobs demanding the holiday’s recognition.

The Martin Luther King Holiday Act, commemorating Dr. King’s birthday (Jan. 15, 1929), was signed into law by President Reagan on November 2, 1983. It's first observance was on January 20, 1986. It took until 1993 for all 50 states to observe some form of the holiday and 7 years more (Jan. 17, 2000), nearly 32 years after Dr. King’s death, for all states to actually include his name in the holiday.

Today Dr. King has been dead for more years than he lived but for the youngest Americans and for generations still to come his name and legacy will be forever woven into their most fundamental notions of equality, peace, economic and social justice, and basic human dignity.

There is a reason why fighting for over three decades for this holiday was a noble cause of the first order. The result is national pause that challenges us to examine how far we have come and how far we still have left to go in our shared endeavor to achieve a more perfect union. Pretty good stuff for a holiday.

When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Aug. 16, 1967