The history of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as an idea began just days after King’s April 4, 1968 murder in Memphis. Congressman John Conyers of New York, a Democrat, and Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, a Republican, both introduced bills to create a holiday to commemorate the Civil Rights activist’s life. But the bills weren’t taken up in committees. (“Martin Luther King Jr. Day,” Wikipedia.org).

At the beginning of the next year, King’s successor as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Ralph Abernathy held a news conference, reported in the January 5 New York Times, to call for the national observance of King’s birthday on January 15and an effort to petition then-president Richard Nixon to make it a federal holiday. (“Dr. King Birthday Sought As Holiday,” New York Times, Jan. 4, 1969)

During the 1970s, a few northern states came on board. Illinois, Massachusetts and Connecticut did so through legislative action. New Jersey did so because of a state court ruling. (Liam Stack, “Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Still Faces Pushback, New York Times, Jan. 16, 2017).

But no bill to create the holiday was debated in Congress until 1979, after President Carter said he would support it, and this attempt was a narrow failure in the House of Representatives. The bill was defeated by five votes. (Stack)

The campaign continued, though, with perhaps the two leading figures behind its eventual success being King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and the musician Stevie Wonder, who funded an office in Washington D.C. to lobby for the holiday and in 1980 recorded the song “Happy Birthday” whose lyrics asked, “Why has there never been a holiday/Where peace is celebrated/All throughout the world?” (Stack; “Happy Birthday,” Genius.com)

A bill was finally passed through both houses of Congress on veto-proof bipartisan votes in favor in 1983, but not before New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, famously threw down on the Senate floor a 300-page report from Republican segregationist Senator Jesse Helms’ office, which detailed allegations against King. Moynihan then tread on it, calling it a “packet of filth.”

President Ronald Reagan, originally an opponent of the holiday because of the cost of a day off for federal employees, signed the bill on November 2, 1983. The holiday would occur on the third Monday every January, beginning in 1986. The bill would also create a national commission to oversee holiday observances.

The fight was not over, however, as some states either refused to recognize the holiday, most famously Arizona, whose Republican governor Evan Mecham, upon assuming office in 1987, reversed an executive order by his Democratic predecessor Bruce Babbitt proclaiming the third Monday in January a state holiday. Not four years after Mecham left office was a ballot initiative successful in approving the holiday in 1992. (Wikipedia.org)

As for Arkansas, it wasn’t until 2017 that an effort, led by Governor Asa Hutchinson, to separate the state’s Martin Luther King’s birthday observance from a commemoration of Confederate General and slaveowner Robert E. Lee, finally succeeded after many previous efforts in the legislature to do so failed. He signed the bill to devote the third Monday in January solely to Martin Luther King on March 21, 2017.  The remembrance of Lee was moved to the second holiday in October but without recognizing Lee’s day as a state holiday. (Associated Press. “Arkansas Ends Robert E. Lee-Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday,” NBCNews.com)

According to a media advisory sent to SWARK.Today Sunday morning, Arkansas’ current governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is scheduled to host the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Prayer Breakfast at the Governor’s Mansion starting at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.