King was the chief spokesman for nonviolent activism in the civil rights movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968. President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed three years later. At first, some states resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays. It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.
The idea of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday was promoted by labor unions in contract negotiations. After King's death, United States Representative John Conyers (a Democrat from Michigan) and United States Senator Edward Brooke (a Republican from Massachusetts) introduced a bill in Congress to make King's birthday a national holiday. The bill first came to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979. However, it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage. Two of the main arguments mentioned by opponents were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to longstanding tradition (King had never held public office). Only two other people have national holidays in the United States honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.
Soon after, the King Center turned to support from the corporate community and the general public. The success of this strategy was cemented when musician Stevie Wonder released the single "Happy Birthday" to popularize the campaign in 1980 and hosted the Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981. Six million signatures were collected for a petition to Congress to pass the law, termed by a 2006 article in The Nation as "the largest petition in favor of an issue in U.S. history."
Former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, created the holiday in Arizona by executive order just before he left office in 1986, but his Republican successor Evan Mecham, armed with an attorney general's opinion that Babbitt's order was illegal, rescinded it days after he took office. In 1989, the Arizona state legislature replaced Columbus Day with the King holiday. In 1990, Arizonans were given the opportunity to vote to observe an MLK holiday. In 1990 the National Football League threatened to move the Super Bowl that was planned to be in Arizona in 1993 if the MLK holiday was voted down. The state legislature passed a measure to keep both Columbus Day and Martin Luther King Day, but 76% of voters rejected the King holiday. Consequently, Arizona "lost $500 million and the Super Bowl" which moved to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. In a referendum in 1992, the voters approved recognition of the holiday.
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