Happy Martin Luther King Day!

As I am "celebrating" Martin Luther King day and the day off school that we get because of it I thought to myself what's the whole history behind this day and its meaning. I knew that it celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, obviously but that's about as far as my knowledge went on this holiday.

The first thing that I learned that the holiday is recognized on Dr. King's birthday which was January 15. Also Martin Luther King day is a fairly new holiday to Arizona. We, as Arizonans, did not start recognizing the holiday until 1992. That is 6 years after the holiday went into federal effect. Because of this reluctance to recognized the holiday, the NFL actually relocated the site of the super bowl from Tempe, AZ to Pasadena, CA in 1991. There were many people that refused to recognize the holiday because some believed that it should be celebrated as a Human Rights day instead being named after a single leader. Finally in 2000 Utah becomes the last state to celebrate the holiday of Martin Luther King day but renames it Human Rights Day.

Now I do not know the extent of your history knowledge, but mine is limited. After i did my research on today's holiday I am pleased to let you all know that I am wiser because of this blog topic. As a student I usually just took advantage of this 3 day weekend to sleep in and hang out with friends but now I realize that I was alive when the holiday was created. Martin Luther King day is not an ancient celebration but a recent occurrence. Because of my newly discovered knowledge about this important man I will be sure to keep the thoughts of human rights and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with me throughout the day.