The road to Martin Luther King Junior's federal holiday was a long one.
The idea began over fifty years ago, the year Doctor King was assassinated.
The late US Representative John Conyers introduced a bill for an MLK holiday every house session from 1968 to 1983, the year it passed both chambers. The journey through the states took a further seventeen years, with Arizona being the most tumultuous.
In 1983, the US House of Representatives voted to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday. The vote was bipartisan with 249 Democrats and 90 Republicans voting in favor. The vote was split along party lines in Arizona. John McCain, a House member at the time, later said he regretted this no-vote.
A vote in the Senate followed which also had bipartisan support, and Arizona again split along party lines.
On November second President Ronald Regan signed the holiday into law.
The path through the states is longer and began in Illinois, the first state to create a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1973. Twelve other states, mostly in the Midwest, also passed holidays prior to federal passage.
All but seven states, Arizona among them, recognized the holiday in the eighties. Utah is technically the last state, to change the name of a state “Human Rights Day” to Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the year 2000.
While Arizona is the second to last state, it was initially given holiday status in Arizona in 1986 by Democratic governor Bruce Babbit as an executive order.
The order was rescinded by Governor Evan Meacham at the start of hit term, Meacham was later impeached and removed from office in 1988.
In 1990 two separate referenda appeared on the ballot. One would have removed Columbus Day as a paid state holiday in favor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
This measure failed by over fifty points. The second measure which merged Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays into Presidents Day and added a holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. also failed, but by less than two points.
The failures of these measures caused an uproar. Performers like Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, and Luther Vandross canceled performances in Arizona. The biggest move, however, was when NFL owners voted to relocate the 1993 Super Bowl out of Arizona.
The action was immediate. In 1992, Arizona voted to merge Presidents Day and add Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This time “Yes” votes outpaced “No” 68 to 39.
Floyd Alvin Galloway was there. As a leader of the East Valley NAACP, he worked for the passage of the holiday. He says the boycotts were the straw that broke the camel’s back. “It was not the goodness of the heart of people in Arizona,” Floyd Alvin says. “When it passed, it was because of the goodness of the wallet of corporations, because there had to be some kind of economic impact for change to come.”
Galloway spoke of two community leaders specifically that worked to pass Martin Luther King Jr. Day that recently passed away. Challette Hendersen, an employee of Boeing, then McDonald Douglas, organized MLK breakfasts in Mesa, which grew into city-wide recognition of the holiday in 1996. Mel Hannah was an Arizona native and was the first black elected member of the Flagstaff City Council.
