President Ronald Reagan signed legislation designating the third Monday in January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day on November 2, 1983. However, the new national holiday wasn’t actually observed until 1986, and it took nearly a decade and a half for it to be recognized in all 50 states. Arizona’s governor used an executive order to cancel its existence in 1987, claiming his predecessor had created it illegally. It wasn’t until 1992 that Arizona’s citizens voted to reinstate the holiday, perhaps swayed by a nationwide boycott of the state. This included the National Football League stripping Phoenix of the 1993 Super Bowl, costing the state an estimated $200-$250 million worth of revenue. Stevie Wonder, the Doobie Brothers, and Public Enemy were among those cancelling scheduled appearances as well.
Arizona wasn’t the only holdout; MLK Day didn’t become law in New Hampshire until 1999, and it wasn’t until the following year that South Carolina and Utah officially followed suit.
This coming Monday will be the day’s 41st observation, meaning the holiday honoring Dr. King is now two years older than he himself was when an assassin ended his life on April 4, 1968.
It’s worth considering what MLK Day’s namesake would make of present-day America if he were around to mark what would have been his 97th birthday on January 15th. Of course, there’s no way to know. Besides, it’s a moot question, since if Dr. King were still alive there wouldn’t be a federal holiday celebrating his life and accomplishments.
Nearly 70 percent of today’s Americans hadn’t yet been born when Dr. King was gunned down nearly 58 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee. Consequently it’s unsurprising few young people today know much about him, aside from the sanitized, all-too-brief portrayals presented in many current history texts. These often contain little more than a reference to his “I Have a Dream” speech in August, 1963 and his assassination five years later. Dr. King is characterized today similarly to the way George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were presented to schoolchildren getting their first exposure to American history 60 or so years ago: as flawless giants whose idealized portrayals were designed to maintain their status in the pantheon of America’s national mythology.
In reality Dr. King, like President Lincoln before him, was reviled by large segments of the population during his life. Many Americans opposed to changing the status quo (or to put it more succinctly, many white Americans) in the early 1960’s saw him as a dangerous Communist collaborator determined to undermine America. That view was inspired by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who spent years compiling a dossier of the civil rights leader’s alleged sins, portraying him as an un-American subversive bent on destroying democracy. In retrospect, America’s lionization of Hoover at the time is nearly as puzzling as its collective demonization of Dr. King was.
Reducing Americans like Martin Luther King, Jr. to caricatures isn’t just lazy and dishonest. Laundering and/or embellishing the lives of historically significant figures disserves both those being portrayed and the nation. Such oversimplifications render American history trivial to future generations needing to study (and learn from) it. Too many current Americans are already victims of an epidemic of incuriosity, one fueled by, among other things, a toxic combination of technological amusements and the greed of those creating them.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was about far more than one speech. His commitment to equal rights for all and his courageous non-violent opposition to racial inequality, unfair labor practices, illegal wars and other forms of injustice make him one American historical figure truly worthy of annual commemoration.
Andy YoungReturn to main page
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