MLK Day, Sing About Me

The third Monday of every year in the United States, is set aside for us to pay respects to a great man who changed this country forever. A man who motivated thousands to fight for change. Robert E Lee. Wait, that’s not right. Stonewall Jackson. No, that’s not right either. No, it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day. That sounds right. 

If you’re 30 and below, MLK Day has been a thing your entire life, unless you live in some backwards state that refused to recognize the holiday. I honestly thought the day was just a given until I heard Public Enemy’s song “By the Time I get to Arizona,” while playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, which was over a decade after the song came out. I had to look up what exactly Sista Soulja was talking about when she said: 

“This is Sister Soulja. Public Enemy, Security to the First World, and all allied forces are traveling west to head off a white supremacist scheming to destroy the national celebration of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. Public Enemy Believes that the powers that be in the states of New Hampshire and Arizona have found psychological discomfort in paying tribute to a Black man who tried to teach white people the meaning of civilization. Good luck brothers. Show ‘em what you got.” 

This was in the days before almost everyone had a computer at home, and smart phones weren’t even a thing. I was flabbergasted when I finally looked it up. Arizona voted to no longer recognize MLK Day in 1987 and didn’t recognize it again until 1992, which is the year I was born. New Hampshire didn’t recognize the holiday until 1999, and Utah didn’t recognize it until the year 2000. That’s insane, considering it had already been a federal holiday since 1986. 

The push to make MLK Day a holiday starts in 1968 when Representative John Conyers introduces a motion to make it a federal holiday. It doesn’t pass, but he keeps doing it for 11 years before he gets a vote for it in 1979. The vote fails, but people reorganize. Stevie Wonder releases a song called “Happy Birthday,” in celebration of Dr. King. There’s a march on Washington put together by The King Center and Corretta Scott King and six million people sign a petition. It goes up for a second vote, this time in the house, with bipartisan support including Newt Gingrich giving a speech in favor of the holiday. That was a surprising thing for me to witness. Newt Gingrich rallying Republican support in favor of Martin Luther King Jr just isn’t something I ever expected to see. 

The Senate is a little different. They tried to filibuster the bill, and when that didn’t work, they provided a 400-page document claiming Dr. King was a communist. The bill manages to get passed in a single vote. Something Kevin McArthy can’t say. President Reagan, signs it into law stating 1986 would be the first year with MLK day as a federal holiday. Still, a lot of states aren’t eager to recognize the holiday and don’t get on board right away. Others are eager to jump off the train or make changes. 

Arizona is obviously the most notable offender, just removing the holiday completely. They learned their lesson when the NFL moved the Super Bowl to California causing the state to lose a little over 100 million dollars.  A few states already had days to pay tribute to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. That’s not okay, but Lee Day had been a holiday in Texas since 1931 and they changed it to Confederate Heroes Day in 1973, long before MLK Day became a thing. That’s an entirely different video because people have been trying for decades to get that holiday removed or changed. 

Virginia is a weird one. They already had an MLK Day in 1978. Further back in 1889, they already had Robert E Lee Day and in 1904 they changed it to Lee Jackson Day to include Stonewall Jackson. After the Federal Government makes MLK Day a national holiday, they turn it into Lee-Jackson-King Day, until 2000 when Govenor Jim Gilmore realizes, this is a terrible idea because Lee and Jackson were fighting to own people like King. They split the days until 2020 because during the George Floyd Uprising someone decides, “let’s just get rid of Lee Jackson Day,” and no logical person disagrees. 

But some states introduced Lee Day or combined the days after MLK Day became a national holiday for no real reason. Take for example Arkansas, they already had a holiday for Robert E. Lee since 1947. They introduced MLK Day in 1983 and gave state employees a choice. You can have the day off on your birthday, MLK Day on the 16th or Robert E. Lee Day on the 19th. It was a mess, so in 1985, someone came up with a solution. Lee King Day. It stayed that way until 2017. But don’t worry, Robert E. Lee still has his day. It’s in October now. 

I wish I could say George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests convinced every state to drop Lee and Jackson completely or at least separate them from MLK Day but it just didn’t. Florida and Tennessee still celebrate Lee Day, they just do it on the 19th and if that happens to fall on the third Monday of the year, well it just happens. Mississippi and Alabama are still planning to celebrate Lee King Day this year because they don’t care. 

Representative Chris England is fighting to change that in Alabama, so the fight isn’t over. He’s trying to get Lee dropped from MLK Day as well as the removal of Confederate Memorial Day and a day honoring Jefferson Davis. He’s got some fire quotes like calling Jefferson Davis a traitor and racist who his home state of Mississippi doesn’t even acknowledge but his quotes about MLK Day are what’s important right now: 

“We can’t choose history; we can’t choose the effects history had on us and we also can’t deny the legacy some of these things like slavery and the Confederacy have had. But we can choose who we praise, we can choose who we designate with distinct honor of giving them a holiday. In History, most of the time, the winners tell the story, but in Alabama the losers do. Despite the fact the Confederacy lost, they often control the narrative here. I think it says a lot about Alabama that despite the tailwinds blowing in the opposing direction, we still hold onto that history. We need to exorcise the demons, some of the best ways to do that is get rid of Jefferson Davis’ holiday and separate MLK and Robert E. Lee.” 

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this and writing about a holiday that most states have recognized and fully embraced. A holiday that is celebrated in Canada, Japan, and The Netherlands. I’m telling you this because the holiday is a reminder of just how hard Dr. King and millions of others had to fight for us to move toward any type of real equality in this country. 

As a kid, I didn’t really understand just how significant MLK Day was or how people were still fighting against it or trying to couple it with confederate generals. Don’t get me wrong. I knew who MLK was. But I took it as a given that we all had the same mindset across the country. Your world is really small as a child, the concept of six million people working over a decade to accomplish something just seems unreal especially in a pre-social media world.  

Going forward, we shouldn’t just kick our feet up on MLK Day and relax as if the job is done. 

It’s like Chuck D said: 

“I’m countin’ down to the day deservin’, fittin’ for a king,”