{"id":73041,"date":"2019-01-20T20:21:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T01:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/wordpress\/?p=73041"},"modified":"2019-01-20T20:21:30","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T01:21:30","slug":"how-martin-luther-king-jr-s-birthday-became-a-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2019\/01\/20\/how-martin-luther-king-jr-s-birthday-became-a-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"How Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s Birthday Became a Holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"body-container\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-xs-12 col-sm-12 col-md-10 col-lg-10 pull-right\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-xs-12 col-sm-12 col-md-8 col-lg-8 pull-left bottom-offset content-offset\">\n<div id=\"article-content\" class=\"content-floated-wrap fb-quotable\">\n<div class=\"wsw\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-73045\" src=\"http:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MartinLutterkingWEB86E8F440-0472-42C0-BF38-02FE52865089_cx0_cy8_cw0_w1023_r1_s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"290\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MartinLutterkingWEB86E8F440-0472-42C0-BF38-02FE52865089_cx0_cy8_cw0_w1023_r1_s.jpg 290w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MartinLutterkingWEB86E8F440-0472-42C0-BF38-02FE52865089_cx0_cy8_cw0_w1023_r1_s-150x103.jpg 150w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MartinLutterkingWEB86E8F440-0472-42C0-BF38-02FE52865089_cx0_cy8_cw0_w1023_r1_s-24x17.jpg 24w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MartinLutterkingWEB86E8F440-0472-42C0-BF38-02FE52865089_cx0_cy8_cw0_w1023_r1_s-36x25.jpg 36w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MartinLutterkingWEB86E8F440-0472-42C0-BF38-02FE52865089_cx0_cy8_cw0_w1023_r1_s-48x33.jpg 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/>The effort to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday began four days after his assassination on April 4, 1968. However, it took more than 15 years for that to happen. <strong>April 8, 1968 \u2014 <\/strong>Four days after King is assassinated, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., introduces the first legislation proposing a federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. <strong>1973-1979 \u2014<\/strong> Several states enact statewide King holidays, including Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><strong>Feb. 19, 1979 \u2014 <\/strong>After 10 years of petitions from millions of Americans, Washington lawmakers hold an official hearing to discuss the idea. King\u2019s wife, Coretta Scott, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>November 1979 \u2014<\/strong> Legislation for the holiday is defeated in a floor vote in the U.S. House of Representatives by five votes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1982 \u2014<\/strong> Coretta Scott King, along with Stevie Wonder, presents a petition signed by 6 million people to House Speaker Tip O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Aug. 27, 1983 \u2014<\/strong> More than 500,000 people attend a 20th Anniversary March on Washington to honor King and the civil rights movement. Speaker after speaker calls for a federal holiday on King\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>August 1983 \u2014 <\/strong>The U.S. House of Representatives passes the King Holiday Bill, 338-90.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oct. 19, 1983 \u2014 <\/strong>The King Holiday Bill passes the Senate, 78-22.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nov. 3, 1983 \u2014 <\/strong>President Ronald Reagan signs the bill into law, declaring the third Monday in January the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jan. 20, 1986 \u2014 <\/strong>The first national celebration of the King Holiday takes place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The effort to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday began four days after his assassination on April 4, 1968. However, it took more than 15 years for that to happen. April 8, 1968 \u2014 Four days after King is assassinated, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., introduces the first legislation proposing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}