United States Celebrates Martin Luther King Jr

On Jan. 18, 2016, almost forty-eighty years later, people will celebrate King’s contributions and accomplishments. They will take time to pause the work of their daily lives to remember  a man who dedicated his life to his dream.

“[Martin Luther King Jr. was] working together with people all over, taking Gandhi’s ideas and non-violence and applying them to making true social change in our country,” said social studies teacher Jeff Kinney.

According to Time Magazine, Ronald Reagan signed a bill in 1983 that would make King’s birthday a national holiday. However, it was not until 2000 that the holiday was recognized by all 50 states.

“There were [holidays] before with presidents and the people at the top of our country, not protesters or people within,” said Kinney.

In November of 1979, the bill for the national holiday was not voted, shy from just four votes away from letting it become a national holiday. A petition was held, and signed by six million people. Stevie Wonder also recorded a song in protest called “Happy Birthday” since King’s birthday is Jan. 15 and the holiday to remember is falls on the Monday nearest to that date.

Coretta Scott King, the late wife of Martin Luther King Jr, said in response to the bill being signed, “It is not a black people’s holiday, it is a people’s holiday.”  

Senior Xavier Phillips agrees and said, “MLK is larger than just the black community. That is the only reason his philosophy was maintained as an American philosophy. Ultimately, it’s that we are more human than a color of skin.”

King used his dream to bring people of all races together. He believed that people should not be segregated, but instead brought together. He was a major influence on the civil rights movement, and worked hard enough so that his dream could come true.

“He [Martin Luther King Jr] comes from a long lineage of people, like Gandhi, like Henry David Thoreau, who preached a conception of what it means to be a human being that isn’t separatist,” said senior Xavier Phillips.

by Gabrielle Redfield, Marketing Genius, Co-editor-in-chief