As Reagan put it: “Now our nation has decided to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by setting aside a day each year to remember him and the just cause he stood for….

As the nation prepares to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it’s worth remembering that venerated Republican deity Ronald Reagan opposed the King holiday right up until the day he signed ...

It has been 40 years since Ronald Reagan signed the bill making Martin Luther King Jr. Day an official national holiday. In that time the legacy of America’s most famous and formidable civil ...

It was 41 years ago that President Ronald Reagan made the third Monday in January an official federal holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s Jan. 15 birthday.

On Nov. 3, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill marking the third Monday of every January, as Martin Luther King, Jr., day, according to the center. The holiday was to begin in 1986.

A bill proposing a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. was first introduced in 1968. It became a federal holiday in 1983 when then-President Ronald Reagan first signed a bill into law.

The annual day of remembrance for Martin Luther King Jr. is less than two weeks away, falling on Monday, Jan. 20, the same day as Inauguration Day this year.

It wasn't until nearly 20 years after his assassination that Martin Luther King Jr. Day became federally recognized in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan signed it into law.

But Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January due to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law in 1968.

Then-President Reagan held a press conference on October 19, 1983, the day the U.S. Senate passed the law creating a federal King holiday by a veto-proof margin of 78-22.