Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a federal holiday which occurs on the third Monday of January each year. King protested racial discrimination in federal and state law and civil society. The non-violent Civil Rights Movement led to several groundbreaking legislative reforms in the United States.
Dr. King's birthday is on Jan. 15 and President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and 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. Official observance in each state's law as well as federal law occurred in 2000.
