Anthem MLK Unity Walk & Day of Service 2023

History of MLK Day

The fight to make the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday a holiday took 32 years, a lot of campaigning, and guest appearances including Stevie Wonder, Ted Kennedy, and the National Football League.

King’s birthday was finally approved as a federal holiday in 1983, and all 50 states made it a state government holiday by 2000.

Officially, King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta. But the King holiday is marked every year on the third Monday in January.

The King Center in Atlanta has a detailed chronology of how the efforts, starting shortly after King’s death in 1968, paid off in the long run. It wasn’t an easy task for holiday supporters, who had to push hard in Congress to get the federal holiday created.

A second battle took place to get individual states to also recognize the holiday, with often emotional disagreements in two states.

Today, the King holiday serves multiple purposes: It honors the total legacy of King; focuses on the issue of civil rights; highlights the use of nonviolence to promote change; and calls people into public service.

Interesting MLK Facts

1. King's Birth Name Was Michael, Not Martin

2. King Entered Morehouse College At the Age of 15 after skipping both 9th and 12th grades. There he earned a bachelors degree in sociology.

3. King Received His Doctorate Degree in Systematic Theology from Boston University

4. King Was Imprisoned Nearly 30 Times.

5. King was awarded at least 20 honorary degrees in later years including Bard College, Yale, Wesleyan and other higher education institutions across the US and world.

6. One of King's first jobs was working for a newspaper, The Atlanta Journal, at age 13.

7. American essayist Henry David Thoreau had a profound impact on King's civil-rights career.

8. King wrote six books throughout his life.

9. King won a Grammy award postmortem for best spoken word recording in 1970.

10.King is still the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize which he received in 1964 at age 35.

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