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- [00:00]
Sally Helm
Hello, History this week listeners. It is Sally here. We cover stories from all around the world on this show. And today's episode is sponsored by the language learning program Rosetta Stone. Our producer Ben is here to tell you all about them.
- [00:13]
Ben Dickstein
Thanks, Ally. People across the world just celebrated the start of 2025. Maybe you have some New Year's resolutions. More history this week. For example, maybe you also want to learn a new language. Well, there's no easier way than with Rosetta Stone. Whether it's Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Arabic, Polish, there are 25 languages to choose from. And Rosetta Stone immerses you so that speaking, listening and thinking in that new language all becomes natural. Their true accent feature gives you real time feedback on your pronunciations so so you'll blend right in and you can bring Rosetta Stone wherever you go on your computer or by using the mobile app. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. History this week listeners can take advantage of Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off, visit rosettastone.com history that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com history today.
- [01:28]
Sally Helm
Hey everyone, Sally here. This episode of History this week is sponsored by Quints and producer Ben is here to tell you all about them. Ben, take it away.
- [01:38]
Ben Dickstein
Thank you, Sally. So the weather's kind of gross right now. It's cold, it's wet, it's kind of bleak. So maybe I want to treat myself to something nice but not break the bank. That's where Quince comes in. It's everyday luxury at an affordable price. I got their Mongolian cashmere waffle sweatshirt. I don't think it has anything to do with Genghis Khan, but it is really soft. Quince's Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50, so there's really no excuse not to buy one. All of their factories use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing processes too, so you can feel good about your purchase. Treat yourself this winter without the luxury price tag. Go to quints.comhistory for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-N-C-E.comhistory to get free shipping and 365 day returns.
- [02:39]
Unknown
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- [03:04]
Sally Helm
The History Channel Original podcast history this week, January 15th, 1969. I'm Sally Helm. There's a huge line of people waiting to get into Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Thousands have gathered. They're here for a tragic kind of celebration. Today would have been Martin Luther King Jr. S 40th birthday. He was assassinated nine months ago while he was in Memphis, Tennessee, supporting striking sanitation workers. This is the church where he preached. King's friend Ralph Abernathy, who'd been jailed with him 17 times, rises to speak, reiterating even now, King's message of nonviolence.
- [03:59]
Unknown
So we say to the nation today.
- [04:01]
Sally Helm
Martin, let James Earl Ray or whoever.
- [04:06]
Unknown
Was responsible for taking your life, let him live.
- [04:11]
Sally Helm
He's also saying, essentially, Martin, you will not be forgotten. Even I will go abroad until the.
- [04:20]
Unknown
World know who you were. On Martin's birthday, we set out on a tremendous adventure and invite all of you to share it with us.
- [04:36]
Sally Helm
King's widow, Coretta Scott King. She also announces a way that her husband won't be forgotten. A new organization founded in his memory to carry out his vision.
- [04:46]
Unknown
It is a realistic attempt to carry on an idealist fight, the fight for which my husband lived and died.
- [04:56]
Sally Helm
It feels natural to celebrate Dr. King's 40th birthday less than a year after his death and to try to find ways to commemorate him, continue his work. But what about his 41st birthday? 42nd. What about what would have been his 96th in the year 2025? Even back in 1969, there is a growing sentiment that this day should be marked every year as a national holiday. Here's Michigan Congressman John Conyers at that birthday celebration in Ebenezer Baptist Church.
- [05:31]
Unknown
We ask the Congress to do no more than set aside one day out of the year so that we can, with everyone around the world, say we recognize that great spirit that has walked among us. It seems to me that this is a minor thing to ask of my fellow colleagues.
- [05:56]
Sally Helm
Yeah. Declaring a federal holiday seems kind of simple, like it should be a matter of paperwork. But getting there is going to be a monumental struggle. A battle fought in Congress, on Washington's National Mall, and in song today, the fight to wish Dr. King a happy birthday. Why was this holiday so controversial? And how did it eventually happen? With a surprising assist from a music legend. It's hard to really internalize just how unpopular Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Was in the late 1960s. Today, of course, he's generally seen as a pillar of humanity, one of the most revered figures in U.S. history. But soon before his death in 1968, a Harris poll had his disapproval rating at 75%. Three quarters of Americans disapproved of Dr. King. And sure, those who supported segregation were never going to like him. But King had also started to take up issues that expanded the definition of civil rights and created more enemies.
- [07:18]
Kevin Gaines
Dr. King alienated a lot of his supporters, but by coming out in opposition to the US War in Vietnam.
- [07:26]
Sally Helm
Kevin Gaines is a professor of civil rights and social justice at the University of Virginia.
- [07:31]
Kevin Gaines
And his decision to do that really violated a sort of a major protocol in American politics in which civil rights leaders were viewed as not being qualified or entitled to speak about or certainly to criticize U.S. foreign policy.
- [07:49]
Sally Helm
King also embraced an economic message in his later years, saying that racial equality could not be achieved without economic equality. That's why he's in Memphis at the time of his assassination, supporting black sanitation workers on strike. This kind of thing turns a lot of members of the white establishment against him.
- [08:09]
Kevin Gaines
He's certainly someone who's considered a troublemaker and a rabble rouser, someone who does not respect law and order, and that's how they would have put it.
- [08:19]
Sally Helm
Some people may have seen him as a rabble rouser, but King never wavered from his core tenet of nonviolence. And that was earning him new critics, too.
- [08:30]
Kevin Gaines
King was also under intense criticism from younger black militants, you know, campaigning under the slogan of black power, who were really critical of nonviolence, and we're calling for armed self defense.
- [08:49]
Sally Helm
Dr. King is assassinated on April 4, 1968. James Earl Ray is later found guilty of the murder. It was seemingly motivated by his hatred of the civil rights movement, and the country is deeply shaken. The New York Times calls his murder a national disaster. Violence breaks out in 125 different American cities, an expression of anger, grief and hopelessness. In the midst of the heartbreak and chaos, Congressman John Conyers has a clear vision. He's from Michigan, one of only seven black members of Congress. He calls up Coretta Scott King for her permission and then introduces a bill in the House calling for a federal holiday to celebrate King's life on his birthday. Conyers does this on April 8, 1968, just four days after King's death. Considering how King is seen today, that might sound like the bare minimum show of respect. But Conyers bill goes nowhere. We talked to Crystal Sanders, an associate professor of African American studies at Emory University. She said, you gotta remember how many congressmen opposed Dr. King.
- [10:02]
Crystal Sanders
He was a civil rights leader that was trying to dismantle the white supremacy that had given many United States senators, in particular their longevity in the U.S. senate representing Southern states.
- [10:14]
Sally Helm
Of course, they don't necessarily say that.
- [10:17]
Crystal Sanders
There were those who perhaps tried to disguise their opposition by saying that they were not necessarily opposed to Dr. King in particular, but they were opposed to having a federal holiday celebrating a private citizen because Dr. King had never held political office.
- [10:35]
Sally Helm
There were only nine federal holidays at that point, and this would have been something relatively new.
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Crystal Sanders
There had only been at that point two other citizens that had holidays named for them, and that was Christopher Columbus, who actually wasn't a US Citizen, and George Washington, the first president of the United States.
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Sally Helm
So Congress won't act, but people begin to take things into their own hands, especially in the African American community. Here's Kevin Gaines.
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Kevin Gaines
You see that with the whole tradition of informal African American holidays, maybe some of them, like Juneteenth, would eventually be recognized. But in many cases, African Americans have their own history and historical figures to commemorate.
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Sally Helm
They decide we don't need a law to celebrate King's birthday.
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Kevin Gaines
If the dominant society is not going to, to recognize Dr. King in a way that, that they believe that Dr. King should be recognized, they are not going to wait for permission to commemorate Dr. King. They're going to do it themselves.
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Sally Helm
That's what happens in 1969 on what would have been King's 40th birthday. Friends and family gather at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. And that's not the only observation. At the University of Pittsburgh, students call for classes to be canceled and present a wide ranging list of demands supporting black students and staff to the school's chancellor. There's a public celebration in King's honor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Tarrytown, New York, hundreds of General Motors factory workers decide to take the day off. GM disciplines those workers, which sparks a wildcat strike the next day. In the coming years, the public calls continue and individual states and cities begin to pass laws recognizing this day as a holiday. But for many who supported King, a federal holiday is still the goal. Following King's death, Congressman John Conyers introduces a bill about this every single year. By 1979, President Jimmy Carter has endorsed the idea and, and it finally makes it to the House floor. But legislators bring up the same arguments from 1968 that there's no precedent for this, that adding a new federal holiday would be expensive, would be a burden for the government, and that Dr. King shouldn't be celebrated that he was a communist sympathizer. The bill fails by five votes. But meanwhile, during that same summer of 1979, Coretta Scott King gets a phone call.
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Stevie Wonder
I said to her, you know, I had a dream about this song.
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Sally Helm
And that is music legend Stevie Wonder, recalling this moment in a CNN interview.
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Stevie Wonder
Decades later, I imagine in this dreamer was doing this song. We're marching to make for Dr. King's birthday to become a national holiday.
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Sally Helm
It's a nice vision, but, you know, people have gathered signatures before. King's supporters have been at this for years and nothing has worked.
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Stevie Wonder
And she was excited about it. And she said, well, I, you know, I wish you luck. You know, we're in a time where I don't think it's going to happen. I said, well, no, I really believe that it will.
- [14:02]
Sally Helm
Stevie Wonder had been a child prodigy. He released his debut album in 1962 at age 12. So he grew up and came up in the music industry. As Dr. King was rising to prominence.
- [14:17]
Kevin Gaines
In America, Wonder, like many other African American children in that era, were very much aware of the struggle for freedom and equality in the South.
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Sally Helm
Wonder had been born in Saginaw, Michigan. He remembers first hearing King's voice on the radio when he was 5 years old. @ that same age, he visited family in Alabama and remembers being called a racial slur. Fast forward 7 years, 12 year old little Stevie Wonder is back in Alabama on a bus tour for Motown Records.
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Kevin Gaines
Wonder is touring through the south at the height of these conflicts around the civil rights movement. I mean, they're writing their tour bus in areas which are extremely hostile to the civil rights movement and black people.
- [15:17]
Sally Helm
The Motortown Review performs for what may have been the first racially integrated crowd to see a concert in Birmingham, Alabama. The show actually goes well. But while they're boarding the tour bus to leave, the musicians hear several loud cracks. At first they think someone is throwing rocks, but no, someone is shooting at the bus. Stevie Wonder and the other musicians rush on board and speed away.
- [15:51]
Kevin Gaines
Touring through the south, experiencing Jim Crow conditions, experiencing sort of the face of hatred and white supremacy. That's gotta be a formative experience.
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Sally Helm
As Wonder grows up, the civil rights movement gains steam. And by the time he's a teenager, Wonder is the kind of pop star who's in demand at big civil rights benefits. In 1966, backstage at one of these rallies in Chicago, he meets Dr. Martin Luther King.
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Kevin Gaines
So Stevie Wonder would have been initiated into this group of really distinguished African American performing artists who were all lending their support as musicians, but also sort of politically and socially to the civil rights movement.
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Sally Helm
Motown Records typically didn't want their artists embracing political messages. But with Wonder, they have to make an exception to keep him on the label. In the early 70s, he reaches an agreement where he still releases his albums with Motown, but uses his own producers and has free rein over which tracks to include.
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Kevin Gaines
You know, he's commenting on American politics. He's commenting on the backlash of the civil rights movement. He's critical of American political leaders who are very opportunistic in their treatment of African Americans and the issues of concern to them.
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Sally Helm
In 1974, in the middle of the Watergate scandal, Wonder releases. You haven't done nothing. It's a direct attack on Richard Nixon.
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Stevie Wonder
It's not too cool to be ridiculed, but you brought this up on yourself.
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Sally Helm
He is also using his music to pay tribute to the greats who came before him. Like in Sir Duke, he pays homage to the jazz legends that he idolizes.
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Stevie Wonder
And with a voice like Alice ringing out, there's no way the band can lose.
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Sally Helm
So it is not really so far out of left field that Stevie Wonder in 1979 would wake up from a dream and decide to write a song about Martin Luther King dedicated to this political cause, a federal holiday. And he does. You probably heard it.
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Crystal Sanders
People like the catchy beat. And so it's fun to.
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Sally Helm
If you're.
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Crystal Sanders
If someone is celebrating a birthday, to give them that Stevie Wonder version.
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Sally Helm
Crystal Sanders again. And the chorus of this song is. Is almost too catchy. It becomes known as a great birthday song, really becoming the go to birthday song for a large part of the African American community. But the verses fly a little under the radar. And those lyrics have a really pointed message, like it's never understood.
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Stevie Wonder
How a man who died for good.
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Crystal Sanders
He says, I just never understood how a man who died for good could.
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Stevie Wonder
Not have a. David Wood.
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Crystal Sanders
Could not have a day that would be set aside for his recognition.
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Sally Helm
Wonder is weighing in on this long standing political issue.
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Crystal Sanders
So he's saying, you know, this is ludicrous. How is it in the United States of America, someone who loved this country and worked to improve this country and make it better for all people is not able to be celebrated.
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Sally Helm
The message is as clear as he can make it.
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Crystal Sanders
At the end of that verse, he uses his name thanks to Martin Luther King.
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Sally Helm
Happy birthday.
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Crystal Sanders
And so it's very clear to anyone who hears the song that he's saying, how is it that we can't have a King holiday?
- [19:48]
Sally Helm
Stevie Wonder releases Happy Birthday in September of 1980. On the album Hotter Than July, there's a photo of Dr. King on the inside paper lining with a tribute written by Wonder underneath. It ends. Join me in the observance of January 15, 1981, as a national holiday. This hit song revives the issue in the minds of the public. But 1981 comes and goes, and Congress hasn't done anything. The following year, Coretta Scott King and Stevie Wonder appear together in Congress to advocate for it. They present a petition in support of the holiday with more than 6 million signatures. Still nothing. President Ronald Reagan has announced his opposition, and Congressmen are still talking about how King's a communist. But in in 1982, the political winds shift. By and large, it's Republican lawmakers who have been opposed to the holiday. And in the midterm elections, they lose 26 seats. And when John Conyers introduces his bill for the 14th time, it finally passes the US House of Representatives in early August of 1983. Now the bill has to pass the Senate, where Republicans are in control. On August 27, 250,000 people descend on the National Mall in Washington, DC. It's the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington where Dr. King gave his I have a Dream speech. And this national holiday issue is front and center from the stage. Stevie Wonder tells people to put pressure on their senators to pass the bill.
- [21:33]
Stevie Wonder
I'd like for all of you to please join me urging the U.S. senate and your senators in particular to vote yes on s. 400, a bill to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a national holiday.
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Sally Helm
And he sings his song.
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Stevie Wonder
Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you.
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Kevin Gaines
I think Wonder is thinking back to his early days, knowing that in a lot of ways his career is inseparable from the struggle of African Americans for freedom and equality.
- [22:17]
Sally Helm
Wonder ends by acknowledging the person who has fought for this holiday for the last 14 years. She's standing on that stage beside him.
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Stevie Wonder
I'd like for all of you to give a hand to me.
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Sally Helm
Even in 1983, the fight in the Senate won't be easy.
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Kevin Gaines
The Dixiecrats, the white supremacists, the staunch opponents of the civil rights bill. You know, some of those folks were still in the Senate.
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Sally Helm
Americans are taking Stevie Wonder at his word, urging the Senate to past this.
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Crystal Sanders
People are picking up the phone and they're calling their US Senators. But the senator from my home state Of North Carolina, Senator Jesse Helms feels that he needs to do something dramatic, right? Something, a last minute desperate measure to try to convince his fellow senators that it would not be a good idea to support The King Holiday.
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Sally Helm
October 18, 1983. Senator Jesse Helms, a segregationist from North Carolina, takes the floor arguing against this bill, which would make Dr. King's birthday a federal holiday. The Washington Post later says that this day for the Senate is a stormy flashback to its bitter civil rights debates of two decades ago. Helms starts with the usual spiel.
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Crystal Sanders
So he presents these documents on the floor of the Senate that supposedly prove that Dr. King was a communist.
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Sally Helm
Helms brings out a 300 page binder. Senator Ted Kennedy objects. Helms responds by basically saying, your brothers are the ones that got this information. He doesn't seem willing to relent.
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Crystal Sanders
But what perhaps Senator Helms was not expecting was that one of his fellow senators would completely dismiss his proof and essentially say, this is nothing but nonsense.
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Sally Helm
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York takes helms 300 page binder, throws it to the ground and stomps on it.
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Crystal Sanders
I think the exact words were, you know, this is filth.
- [24:48]
Sally Helm
Technically, packet of filth. But the point stands. And after this dramatic debate, the bill passes. Kevin Gaines says even senators who might have been opposed to the holiday knew that voting for it would be politically wise.
- [25:08]
Kevin Gaines
They realized that, you know, it was just politically unwise to risk alienating black voters who were a significant part of the electorate in those states.
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Sally Helm
The final vote is 76 to 12, a much wider margin than had been expected. On November 2, 1983, it finally happens.
- [25:34]
Unknown
But traces of bigotry still mar America. So each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the commandments he believed in and sought to live every day.
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Sally Helm
Coretta Scott King stands behind Ronald Reagan as he signs this bill, knowing he had previously said he didn't want it to pass. Then she steps up to the microphone.
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Unknown
America is a more democratic nation, a more just nation, a more peaceful nation, because Martin Luther King Jr. Became her preeminent non violent commander.
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Sally Helm
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is now officially a federal holiday. But it still takes some time for this celebration to take root everywhere in the country. Crystal Sanders grew up in Clayton, North Carolina, Jesse Helms estate. Her father served on the Clayton Town Council.
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Crystal Sanders
My father was the first and only African American to serve on the Clayton town council in the 20th century. He had tried for several years to get Clayton to adopt recognition of the King holiday as a paid holiday for town employees. And year after year, his fellow councilmen refused to pass such an ordinance. And so my father got creative.
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Sally Helm
By 1990, seven years after the holiday became official, he makes a motion that the town of Clayton adopt the same holidays as the state of North Carolina. Very reasonable.
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Crystal Sanders
All of his fellow councilmen agreed and voted in the affirmative. But almost immediately after, one of the fellow councilmen says, wait, did I just vote for the King holiday?
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Sally Helm
Indeed, the state of North Carolina recognized this as a holiday, and now the town of Clayton did, too. That same year, 1990, the state of Arizona votes on a measure that would make MLK Day a state holiday. Around the same time, the NFL announces that Arizona will host the Super bowl three years later in 1993, only if the measure passes. But it fails.
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Crystal Sanders
And so, indeed, the NFL made good under threat, and they moved the 1993 Super bowl from Phoenix, Arizona, to Pasadena, California.
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Sally Helm
This is a far cry from that 75% disapproval rating for Dr. Martin Luther King. Now the National Football League has moved the super bowl in solidarity with this day that celebrates him. In 2023, a Pew Research poll showed that 81% of Americans believed Dr. King had a positive impact on the country. That's not a hundred. And today, two states, Alabama and Mississippi, do still celebrate MLK Day in combination with Robert E. Lee Day. Lee, the Confederate general, was born on January 19. But MLK Day is celebrated across the country every year. King is remembered, even revered. But Kevin Gaines said that can be a bit of a double edged sword.
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Kevin Gaines
It gives us an occasion to reflect on Dr. King's life, his legacy, his contributions to American democracy, his unfinished dream of a more just and equal world. But you know, it plays out in corporate America. You know, you have all of these advertisements, you know, commemorating Dr. King in magazines and television and radio, and you know it's a corporate, rather sanitized vision of Dr. King.
- [29:44]
Sally Helm
That vision tends to be heavy on inspirational photos and I have a dream pull quotes light on King's solidarity with sanitation workers, his dreams of true economic equality. But maybe the holiday serves as a moment to hold America up against Dr. King's goals. Check in on its progress. And yes, say happy birthday, too. Thanks for listening to History this week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things history this week, sign up@historythisweekpodcast.com and if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an email@historythisweekistory.com Special thanks to our guests Kevin Gaines, Julian Bond, professor of Civil Rights and Social justice at the University of Virginia and Crystal Sanders, historian and Associate professor of African American Studies at Emory University. This episode was produced and sound designed by Ben Dickstein. It was co produced by Samira Tazari and also produced by me, Sally Helm for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producers are Ben Dickstein and David Weisbord from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow, rate and review History this week wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next week.