On January 15, our school, along with many other federal agencies, was closed to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This day to honor Martin Luther King Jr. is on the third Monday of January each year.
King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. King was influenced by his father early on in life to stand up for segregation. He received a doctorate degree in Theology and in 1955 King helped organize the first major protest of the African American Civil Rights Movement. This was called the Montgomery bus boycott. This protest lasted 13 months and ended with the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on buses is unconstitutional. But, King is most famously known for the “I Have a Dream” speech which took place in 1963. He spoke of his dream of a United States without segregation and racism. King had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. He was sadly assassinated on April 4, 1968. With all these significant milestones in mind, MLK day was officially declared a national holiday November 2, 1983.
