Martin Luther King Day

So barely two weeks after New Year's Day, the next of the US Bank holidays comes along (I had a rant about this sometime ago) - at least a bank holiday for some of us - the eternal curse of the scientist meaning that i had a day in the lab as usual (bloody cancer cells just keep on growing!). Anyway, as the title indicates, today was Martin Luther King Day and this year was particularly special given that it was the 20th anniversary of the federal holiday. The King Holiday is slightly different from the norm in that it was created to honor the life and contributions of Dr. King who is considered America’s greatest champion of racial justice and equality and was born out of the Civil Rights movements.

It took 15 years for the holiday to come into being - with a democrat congressman introducing legislation for a holiday 4 days after King was assassinated. All through the 1980's, controversy surrounded the idea of a Martin Luther King Day. Congressmen and citizens had petitioned the President to make January 15, (King's birthday) a federal holiday. Ultimately, in order for the holiday to come into being, the then holidays for Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday were condensed into the all-purpose President's day and January 15th was declared a federal holiday by Ronald Reagan - the only federal holiday to commerate an African-American. However, as you can probably guess, it wasn't all sweetness and light - with many southern states not acknowledging the holiday and using the day to honour confederate Generals and the like. Eventually this all changed with New Hampshire becoming the last state to adopt the holiday in 1999 and South Carolina (my current home) making it a paid state holiday in 2000 - until then, employees of the state were allowed to choose between this and three confederate-related holidays. Here's to King and his dream of a unified world.