Martin Luther King Jr. Day
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, celebrating the life and work of the great civil rights leader, is held each year on the third Monday in January. The first National King Holiday was held in 1986. This year the holiday falls on January 16, 2006.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent his life struggling to obtain racial equality and justice. His methods were marked with forgiveness and tolerance and his message was not one of division, but of unity between all people.
At the 1963 March on Washington, Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in which he expressed his hope that one day freedom and equality would ring out across the land: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal".
Winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, Martin Luther King advocated nonviolent protest as a means to achieve the goal of equality and justice for all citizens of the United States. He stated in his Nobel acceptance speech that man must "overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression". He accepted the prize not for himself, but as a trustee for those "in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold".
Martin Luther King's life was cut short by an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee one day after his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in which he stated that although he wanted to live a long life, he was no longer concerned with that: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land".
For a list of Martin Luther King Holiday Events in the United States, Click Here
