A crowd parades down State Street to the Coliseum on April 3, 1971, in Chicago in memory of slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In the years after King’s death, memorial events occurred in April and January to honor him. In 1973, Illinois was the first state to make MLK Day a legal holiday. (Don Casper/Chicago Tribune)
We remember Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. each January 15, which was the slain civil rights leader’s birthday.
But, did you know, Illinois was the first state to recognize it as a holiday 50 years ago?
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Gov. Dan Walker speaks at a press conference on Sept. 18, 1973, at the State of Illinois building in Chicago. The prior day, Walker signed a bill creating a legal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. (George Quinn/Chicago Tribune)
Schools here began commemorating the occasion in 1969. They wouldn’t, however, close for the day until Gov. Dan Walker made it a legal holiday on Sept. 17, 1973. The bill’s sponsor: Illinois Rep. Harold Washington.
It would take another decade before the federal government designated the third Monday in January as a national holiday in honor of King. By then, Washington had become Chicago’s first Black mayor.
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This week we take a look back at King’s time in Chicago and the effort to organize an annual celebration of his life.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., third from left, speaks at a press conference at the Sahara Inn near O’Hare Airport on Jan. 7, 1966. Sitting at the table with King are Rev. James Bevel of Chicago, from left, Al Raby of Chicago, King, Rev. Andrew Young of Atlanta, Georgia and Rev. Walter Fauntroy of Washington D.C. (Jack Mulcahy/Chicago Tribune)
King tells reporters he is working on a three-phase plan to mobilize the roughly 1 million Blacks in Chicago. While spending a few days each week in the city, King planned to target public and private institutions “which have created infamous slum conditions directly responsible for the involuntary enslavement of millions of Black men, women and children.”
Though he previously threatened to spend another summer in Chicago leading protests in favor of open housing, he abandons that effort in July 1967.
An aerial view of the West Side shows smoke rising from several fires ignited by rioters along West Madison and Leavitt streets, west to Spaulding Avenue, on April 5, 1968. (Cy Wolf / Chicago Tribune)
A little more than a year since he voiced his dissatisfaction with Chicago leaders, King is shot and killed at a Memphis hotel.
Just one day later, Chicago explodes. Seething with anger, thousands take to the streets in a two-day siege, smashing storefront windows, plundering merchandise and setting buildings ablaze.
Mayoral candidate Harold Washington speaks at a memorial service for Rev. Martin Luther King at Operation PUSH Headquarters on April 4, 1977, in Chicago. Washington was the first successful sponsor of a bill to create a legal holiday for MLK in Illinois. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune)
A movement began immediately after King’s death to create a national holiday in his honor.
The first successful sponsor of such a bill was an elected official in Illinois — Rep. Harold Washington of Chicago. The future mayor of the city was the architect of a measure that created a commemorative holiday on King’s birthday (January 15) and was signed into law by Gov. Richard Ogilvie on Oct. 6, 1969. Schools, however, wouldn’t be closed for the occasion and businesses had no obligation to shut their doors either. Ogilvie vetoed a 1971 bill that would have made King’s birthday a legal holiday — which would close schools, businesses and government offices — saying it could have “a severe impact” on commerce since it wasn’t observed elsewhere.
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Ogilvie’s successor, Gov. Dan Walker, signed a bill creating the legal holiday while also approving a measure to prohibit the state from ordering busing to achieve racial balance in public schools. Ironically, King was an advocate of busing. Walker later issued a proclamation permitting banks and other institutions to remain open on January 15.
A portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hangs above a memorial service for the slain civil rights leader at Holy Angles Catholic Church at 607 Oakwood Blvd. on Jan. 15, 1974, in Chicago. (William Kelly/Chicago Tribune )
A cheering crowd of 1,000 people joined a celebration at Operation PUSH headquarters while others attended a candlelit memorial service at St. Martin Catholic Church.
Chicago public schools and city colleges were closed. All city, state and county offices in Chicago were closed as were criminal and civil courts and three state motor vehicle facilities.
President Ronald Reagan signs the bill making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday into a national holiday as Coretta Scott King watches on Nov. 2, 1983, in Washington. (Barry Thumma/AP)
With Coretta Scott King at his side, President Ronald Reagan signs legislation designating the third Monday in January as the nation’s 10th national holiday. The first observance happened on Jan. 20, 1986. Two states, Mississippi and Alabama, honor King and Confederate general Robert E. Lee on King-Lee Day.
Reagan, who initially opposed the King holiday, said the civil rights leader “made equality of rights his life’s work” and was a man “whose words and deeds … stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul.”
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