Winter Garden Magazine January 2015 | Page 17

M artin Luther King, Jr. Day is an annual federal holiday observed on the third Monday of January each year, with the 2015 holiday celebrated on Monday, January 19th. The holiday is always just around the time of King’s birthday, January 15th. King was the chief spokesman for nonviolent activism in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. Throughout his life, Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American pastor, humanitarian, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known and is honored for being a man of courage and vision and a seeker of nonviolence and peace. Born in 1929, King became a civil rights activist early in his life. As a 26-year-old minister of the Gospel, Dr. King led 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott against a company which segregated blacks, treating them as second-class citizens. At the very inception he advised all those who would join in the protest that “our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith. Love must be our regulating ideal.’’’ Dr. King’s unshakable faith inspired others to resist the temptation to hate and fear. His protest became a triumph of courage and love. In 1963, King helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In this speech, King described his dreams of freedom and equality arising from a land of slavery and hatred. It was here that he established his reputation as one of the greatest and most influential speakers in American history, and the event was a defining moment for the Civil Rights Movement. On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. He continued his efforts battling segregation and racism for years until his assassination on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Groups began petitioning Congress to set aside a holiday in King’s honor soon after his assassination. The holiday was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983, was first observed on January 20, 1986, and was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000. Hundreds of streets across America have been renamed in his honor, and a memorial statue opened to the public on the National Mall (Washington, D.C.) i