Martin Luther King Day cemented in part due to another African-American icon

If you are under thirty years old like me it's unknown to you that it was on this day in 1986 that Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first observed nationally, almost 18 years after his death, due largely in part to several state representatives, senators and another African-American man, Stevie Wonder. On his 1980 album Hotter Than July, which was not received as well critically as many his previous albums yet was first to reach platinum status, that the tribute song "Happy Birthday" was released and helped to cement the movement to have the third Monday of every year devoted to the infamous civil rights leader.

The bill to recognize the day was first introduced in 1979 , but came up five votes short in Congress. The progressive work and mobilization was greatly helped by the Wonder track which outlines the reasons why the day should be received. "I just never understood/ How a man who died for Good/ Could not have a day that would/ be set aside for his recognition," are just some of the lines from the song, but put it into perspective the need to distinguish the day of his birth as a significant day in American history.

Stevie Wonder along with many other leaders, actors, musicians, and activist used the song in the 1981 Rally for Peace Press Conference to gather over six million signatures in favor of the bill introduced two years earlier to petition Congress to recognize the third Monday of every January to commemorate MLK's legacy, or as Wonder so eloquently presents it at the end of the song, "We know the key to unity of all people is in the dream that you had so long ago, that lives in all of the hearts of people that believe in unity.We'll make the dream become a reality, I know we will because our hearts tell us so."