It took more than a quarter century of advocacy to create the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday we know today. The push for a federal holiday to commemorate Dr. King’s legacy began just days after he was assassinated in 1968. Year after year, Michigan Representative John Conyers introduced a bill to create the holiday, but it went nowhere for more than a decade. Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow, and famous names like Stevie Wonder continued to advocate tirelessly for the holiday throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Finally in 1983, the bill commemorating Dr. King’s birthday with a federal holiday on the third Monday in January was signed into law.
Given King’s legacy as a changemaker and community builder, however, activists weren’t satisfied with just a federal holiday—they wanted to emphasize King’s commitment to service and encourage the public to continue his work. Congressman and fellow Civil Rights icon John Lewis envisioned MLK Day as “a day on, not a day off.” 1994 saw the passage of the King Holiday and Service Act, recognizing the holiday as a national day of service. This January 20, 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the MLK Day of Service and its challenge to Americans to give back to our communities.
Dr. King often spoke of “the beloved community,” a world where oppression and poverty were a thing of the past and conflict was resolved through nonviolence. Rather than being an idealized utopia, King saw the beloved community as an achievable vision where nonviolence would speak truth to power to change oppressive minds and systems. To make that vision a reality, however, citizens are required to join together to create that inclusive and equitable new world.
King believed in the power of service and its place at the center of our lives. In a 1963 sermon, he wrote that “life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” In that spirit, his Day of Service is a defining opportunity to use your talents, skills, and expertise to take action.
At Taproot, we are committed to advancing skills-based volunteering as a means of achieving Dr. King’s vision of the beloved community. By matching volunteers with social good organizations in need of their skills, we are one step closer to achieving King’s vision for a kinder, more just world.
