Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

This week Americans have been observing the Martin Luther King Jr Day national holiday, which marks the birthday of the late civil rights leader. The campaign to have Dr King formally recognized in the US was led by his widow, Coretta Scott King. The holiday was finally signed into law in 1983. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Dr King’s youngest daughter, Dr Bernice King, about the long and fraught campaign, and the crucial role her mother played in supporting her father’s legacy.

Photo: Coretta Scott King speaking at the White House. (Credit: White House)

Transcript

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0:35.4	Sounds.
0:36.4	Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm for Hana Hiver and today I'm taking you back to 1983 when a new national holiday was signed into law in America.
0:58.0	In the 50s and 60s, one of the important crises we faced was racial discrimination. The man whose words and deeds
1:05.4	in that crisis stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul was Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
1:12.3	Martin Luther King was born in 1929 in an America where because of the color of their skin nearly one in ten lived lives that were separate and unequal.
1:23.0	The Federal Holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr.
1:27.0	is celebrated on the third Monday of each January.
1:30.0	The initiative to have Dr King's birthday recognized as a national holiday in the United States
1:37.0	was led by his widow, Coretta Scott King.
1:40.0	It began shortly after Dr King's assassination in 1968 and as his youngest daughter Bernice King explains
1:48.7	It was to be a long and fraught campaign
1:52.3	It did take literally 15 years because really there was
1:56.8	no organized and mobilized effort around getting the passage and it was when my mother got involved to mobilize
2:04.8	organizations and individuals to focus their attention on the importance of
2:10.0	getting this holiday pass when things began to change.
2:14.0	Coretta Scott King's campaign finally culminated in a historic bill signing by President
	...

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