America festivals Online

Martin Luther King Day, it's on the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. it’s a national holiday in the USA and it was celebrated on 3^rd Monday of January whichever the closest to the date 15^th January of every year. Martin Luther King Jr is a civil right leader who leads a nonviolent movement in America to give equal right to African Americans.

Martin Luther King Jr was shot dead in 1968 at Lorraine Motel in Memphis. After that, it was proposed that his birthday was to be celebrated by a national holiday. The campaign was run in order to achieve that as Martin Luther King Jr would be the first private citizen to get a national holiday, first one will be George Washington as his birthday celebrated as presidents day.

It was proposed to Congress that it should be celebrated national wide as a holiday, more than 6 million signatures were gathered in 1980 to support the Martin Luther King Day. After a long session of arguments finally, president Ronald Reagan signed the national holiday into law in 1983.

That day people would do public service and help other people. It was called “A Day On, not a Day Off” as even if it’s a holiday, people need to work in order to honor Martin Luther King Jr. anyone can attend the community service and help around. People can attend parades, rallies, and speeches which were organized around the country.

Its also celebrate in Hiroshima Japan, which is the only place in the world outside of America where they celebrate Martin Luther King Day. The reason would be Martin Luther King Jr was an anti-nuclear activist and they would celebrate it to spread the life and work of his.

He was a Baptist minister and civil right activist which lead the civil right movement from the 50s to 1968, he leads this movement by the nonviolent way and peacefully. His movement inspired millions of African American to join him for the civil right moment. His speech, “I have a dream” is one of the most inspiring speech in the history which made him the center of the movement. He was the leader of a protester in Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was sparked because other cities have to give up their seat to white people. Rosa park was arrested when she refused to give up her seat and which lead to Montgomery Bus Boycott. In which people refused to use public transport for 381 days.

Martin Luther King Jr's nonviolent movement was heavily inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and because of this, he became a national icon. Which is why we celebrate the Martin Luther King Day, to remember him as he said standing near Lincoln monuments in Washington, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'”