Monday, December 23, 2024

Martin Luther King Holiday Observed - January 1986

Martin Luther King Holiday Observed - January 1986
On January 20, for the first time, the United states officiallyobserve Martin Luther King Day. Events honoring the memory of the slain civil-rights leader began several days earlier. On January 15, his actual birthday, Pres. Ronald Reagan spoke to children at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Washington, D.C. On January 16, King's bust was unveiled in the Great Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington; he was the first black to be represented among the many leaders whose statues and busts appeared in the Rotunda. Reagan met with Mrs. Coretta Scott King at the White House, January 17. On January 18, he spoke out against affirmative action quotas in hiring, recalling King's plea that people be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." On January 20, Mrs. King led a march through Atlanta, her husband's home town. Although most businesses across the nation did not close on the holiday, it was more widely observed by state and local governments and by school districts.

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