State and Federal Offices will be closed and there will be no school for the Kenai Peninsula on Monday, January 18, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott says the holiday is one of the most important days of the year for him.
Lt. Gov. Mallott: “It’s a civil rights movement that goes on today and it effects everybody. It effects every racial group, it effects every ethnicity, it effects how we live the values of our country, how we reach to those who still somehow believe that their voice isn’t heard, that their equality has not yet been fully reached. It’s something that I think about, and I don’t think this is a stretch, almost every day. How do we reach the least, and I don’t mean that in value laden terms, but just the least amongst us?”
Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the single most influential civil rights activists in U.S. history, working passionately for 13 years to advance racial equality.
On August 28, 1963 he directed a peaceful march on Washington, D.C. with 250,000 people to whom he delivered his most famous address, “I Have a Dream”.
A year later, at age 35, King was the youngest man to have ever received the Nobel Peace Prize and he turned over the money from that award to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis where he was scheduled to protest the next day.
Lt. Governor Mallott says even though the United States has come a long ways in the civil rights movement…
Lt. Gov. Mallott: “We always have work to do. His leadership and his vision both have made him a historical figure in our country and the world but there is still work to be done.”
On Monday Lt. Governor Mallott will deliver a speech about the state and federal holiday in Palmer.
