Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It’s a national holiday.
MLK day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday in January of each year.
He was born in 1929 and assassinated in 1968.
After his death, U-S Congressman John Conyer’s of Detroit and Republican U-S senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts introduced a bill to make King’s birthday a national holiday.
But it wasn’t until 1983 that the holiday was signed into law by then-president Ronald Reagan.
It was first observed three years later.
Some states at first resisted observing the holiday.
It wasn’t until 2000 that it was officially observed for the first time in all 50 states.