Observed on the third Monday of January each year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day marks the anniversary of the birth of civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr..

The day was first promoted as holiday by labor unions in contract negotiations. After King's death in 1968, United States Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) introduced a bill in Congress to make King's birthday a national holiday. It first came to vote in 1979, but fell short by five votes. Those opposed to the bill  felt another paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be inappropriate and going against long-standing tradition.  In 1983, it was passed by a veto-proof majority and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan but it was not officially observed in all 50 states until 2000.

It is one of only three United States federal holidays to commemorate an individual person. The other two federal holidays honoring individuals are Washington's Birthday (often called President's Day) and Columbus Day.

In 1994, the Congress initiated the King Day of Service to transform the federal holiday honoring King into a national day of community service grounded in his teachings of nonviolence and social justice.

As our nation makes progress toward realizing King's dream of racial equality, the work to achieve liberty and justice for all is never-ending. The historic election of Barack Obama as President of the United States reflects the real advances our nation has made in the fight against the bigotry that King opposed.

To make it a "a day on, not a day off," millions of Americans are expected to honor King and answer President-elect Obama's call to service by volunteering on the January 19 King Holiday as a "Day of Service."