Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
The Martin Luther King Day is an American national memorial and holiday for the murdered in 1968 Martin Luther King Day to be celebrated in January since 1986, every third Monday. He is thus close to or even on the birthday of King on January 15, allowing a three-day weekend off.
In 1968, after King's assassination, began the first efforts to create a holiday in his honor. The African-American Representative John Conyers of Detroit has already brought this year a bill in the U.S. Congress a. In the 1970s, unions joined the movement support. U.S. President Jimmy Carter supported the efforts. However, a majority found the law until 1983.
The opposition to the introduction of the holiday was led by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, who questioned whether King was important enough for such a ceremony. He also threw King before to have been against the Vietnam War, and imputed his communist sympathies. Even President Ronald Reagan was an opponent of the bill. Only after the Congress passed the Public Holidays Act decided by a majority that underlined the futility of a veto by more than 2/ 3 of the votes, Reagan gave in and signed the bill in the Rose Garden of the White House on November 2, 1983. The newly created federal holiday was first committed on 20 January 1986. Initially, individual states had refrained from declaring the holiday as a national holiday. Only since 2000, the Martin Luther King Day is observed not only by the federal government, but also from all 50 states of the United States.
As a relatively new holiday so far no distinct traditions have developed, associated with the holiday. Also, he is not respected by all employers; overall he is off work for about 33 % of all workers, but rising. As a national holiday, it applies to state employees and civil servants. In addition, it is also popular with non-profit and non-governmental organizations; in factories and in the manufacturing sector it is celebrated on the rarest. Since 1994, the idea of volunteer work ( "Martin Luther King Day of Service" ) is linked to the holiday; this goes back to an initiative of former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford and Congressman John Lewis.