It was first proposed four days after King's 1968 assassination outside a Memphis motel. It took 15 years until it became a federal holiday.

More than 50 years after he died at age 39 from an assassin’s bullet, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. endures as one of the most influential and recognizable figures in American history. His rise from the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to his groundbreaking work as a founder and leader

Coretta Scott King and numerous other women who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. were committed activists in their own right during the Civil Rights Movement.