A Holiday Much Overlooked: The Meaning Behind MLK Day

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A Day Treated Like Any Other

On January 17th, 2022, Mountain Lakes High School students received a day off on the school calendar. A snowstorm that started the night before happened to carry over to the very same day. But the day off wasn’t a snow day. January 17th was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, recognized as a federal holiday and marked as a day off in Mountain Lakes High School for the second year in a row. Federal holidays are granted for the purpose of letting employees and students celebrate or observe a special occasion.

So, is a day off really what MLK Day deserves to be treated as (the highlight for MLHS students that day was probably extra napping or shoveling, anyway)? Upon reflecting that King’s life was dedicated to active involvement in his community, it’s easy to see that MLK Day should be observed as anything but a day of rest. Instead, MLK Day is a reminder to stay vigilant of the racial injustices that King fought and practice the spirit of community service that King championed.

Pushing the Legislative Envelope

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is currently celebrated by all fifty U.S. states. However, the widespread acceptance of the holiday was not achieved until just under fifteen years after King’s assassination. At the time of King’s death, Congressman and civil rights activist John Conyers unsuccessfully proposed before Congress that MLK Day be made a federal holiday. Creating a new national holiday would generate expenses for employers, and Martin Luther King Jr. was only a private individual (the only other American individual to be honored by a federal holiday was George Washington, who served as the nation’s president). But Conyers persisted with the help of the Congressional Black Caucus, corporations, and a rapidly growing petition among the American public.

Rep. John Conyers and Martin Luther King, Jr.

At last, by the time Stevie Wonder released “Happy Birthday” to commemorate King and hosted the Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981, the MLK Day petition accrued more than six million signatures, making it the largest petition in U.S. history. A Congressional vote in overwhelming support of MLK Day that year forced President Reagan to sign a bill recognizing the new federal holiday. Although it took some time for all fifty states to adopt the holiday (with some even deciding to commemorate MLK together with confederate figures like Robert E. Lee), Martin Luther King Jr. Day had formally entered the American calendar.

Unjust and Unfree

Racial Wealth Inequality In The U.S. Is Rampant [Infographic] — Credit: Statista

Now that America has had over forty years to take a holiday and reflect on the causes King fought for, what does the United States look like today? As of 2020, white Americans control 84.6% of U.S. wealth while Black Americans and Hispanic Americans respectively control 3.8% and 2.1%. However, Black Americans and Hispanic Americans together make up about a third of the U.S population. In other trends, the gap between earnings for Black and white workers has remained roughly the same since the end of the Civil Rights Movement, as have Black housing ownership rates. These are all numbers that Americans everywhere should watch every year, especially on MLK Day. If anything, this “day off” demands heightened vigilance of racial inequities—something that requires all Americans to defer relaxation and make a conscious mental effort.

Observing MLK Day wouldn’t be complete without an examination of King’s teachings, which themselves reflect the voices of other Black activists—even King’s militant counterpart, Malcolm X. In light of recent Black Lives Matter protests, many of which used radical ideas and actions to achieve their political ends, one has to recognize that King’s advocacy of nonviolence has fallen out of moral favor with some civil rights activists.

Black Power Scholar Illustrates How MLK And Malcolm X Influenced Each Other : NPR — A London mural of Malcolm X and King.
Credit: NPR

However, regardless of how activists feel about King’s methods, all must agree that if America is to march forward as one nation, it must strive towards King’s ends. King was an optimist. He stated: “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

Love & Hate

Racism’s persistence in the United States may make it seem foolish to approach injustice with optimism, let alone “unconditional love.” Yet a deconstruction of the interpretation of “love” can reveal much more complexity in what King advocated. In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, one of the twentieth century’s greatest Black writers and a renowned acquaintance to King, addresses a letter to his nephew that describes his notion of love in the face of injustice:

“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatsoever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love … we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.”

There are two implications in Baldwin’s words. The first is that in order to achieve excellence and live with dignity, no minority should have to assimilate to white society. Progress and the elevation of human dignity require a commitment of love to oneself. The Black Separatist Movement—led by none other than King’s most outspoken critic, Malcolm X—embodied this commitment to self-love by promoting Black power and resisting assimilation to white institutions. In truth, even though Malcolm X and King rejected one another’s means to achieve freedom, they both recognized the need for love to support Black Americans and fundamentally fought a mutually inclusive fight for racial justice.

The second implication from Baldwin’s writing is that white people, and not just racially aggressed victims, are harmed by racism. In spawning racist myths and racial inequalities, white society has deluded itself into believing that minorities are “other” when in fact all races in the United States are mutually bound in citizenship. For white America, perpetuating racism is to perpetuate hate upon itself. Similarly, in rejecting white Americans, racial minorities also reject a part of themselves. King’s notion of “unconditional love” was not the same as forgiveness or the tolerance of injustice. Rather, it was a recognition that all Americans are connected, an expectation that society would improve, and trust in the fact that taking action would allow people to become better.

The Endless March

On MLK Day, perhaps we should have taken more time to reflect upon these ideas. In recognition of the diverse voices of people within the United States, we could diversify the viewpoints we read in literature or perspectives of history we study in the classroom. To promote love of our communities, we could dedicate more time to community service and ultimately acknowledge that we, in our affluent bubble of Mountain Lakes, are inexorably connected with those who we choose to serve, even if they are different from us.

So, the next time MLK Day rolls around, let us act by bettering our surrounding environments with King’s lessons in love.