I know how to celebrate most holidays. On Independence Day, I reread the Declaration of Independence and watch fireworks after dark. To bring in the New Year, I try to stay up till midnight. On Thanksgiving I feast with family, and so on.
But I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to celebrate on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 17 this year.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born Jan. 15, 1929 and died from an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968. In between, he advanced the cause of civil rights for all Americans and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Following years of struggle, his birthday (actually the third Monday in January) became a federal holiday in 1983.
Federal holidays affect only federal operations, like the Postal service. State and local governments are not required to observe federal holidays. By the time the federal King Day took effect in 1986, many states already observed it.
But some states held off, most notably Arizona and South Carolina.
The Palmetto State was the first to secede from the Union 150 years ago, and the last to make King’s birthday a state holiday, waiting until 2000. As for Arizona, the National Football League moved the 1993 Super Bowl from Tempe in protest, and there were also tourist boycotts of the Grand Canyon State, which soon adopted the holiday.
Some Colorado lawmakers opposed a King Day on account of cost, a legitimate concern about adding a paid holiday for state employees. So one paid day off for state workers (Colorado Day on Aug. 1, the date the state entered the Union in 1876) was eliminated, and Martin Luther King day was added in 1984.
But how to celebrate it out here in the boondocks of Colorado? There are no festivals or gatherings scheduled in my little town. Aside from the courthouse, public schools and post office, everything is open as per usual — stores, restaurants, tap rooms, public library, along with the ski resorts benefitting from a three-day weekend.
So without any local celebration, I spent the day at home reading up on King. And it was educational. He was a Baptist and, according to his niece, a Republican. And alas, these days there don’t appear to be many Baptist Republicans like him.
Ed Quillen is a freelance writer in Salida, Colorado
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