00:00 Martin Luther King Jr. was a cornerstone to the civil rights movement fighting for equality and human rights for African Americans.
00:06 Even though many people know about key historical events in which he played a major role like the Montgomery bus boycott, the
00:13 1963 March on Washington, and the Voting Rights Act, here's the story about how Martin Luther King Jr.
00:19 Day became a federal holiday.
00:21 According to the National Constitution Center, the fight to make the Martin Luther King Jr.
00:26 Birthday a holiday took 32 years and a lot of campaigning. King was assassinated on April 4th,
00:32 1968 and the efforts began four days after King's death, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
00:40 Business Insider knows that the bill was a bipartisan measure,
00:44 but the House of Representatives didn't vote on the King holiday bill until 11 years after it was introduced.
00:50 It didn't pass until four years after that.
00:53 President Ronald Reagan signed the measure into law in 1983 and
00:57 historians note that it took nearly two more decades for all 50 states to observe the day. In
01:03 2000, South Carolina became the last state to officially designate Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday.
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