Is Martin Luther King Day on January 15 or the third Monday in January?

The holiday is always the third Monday in January. King was born on January 15, so the holiday lands on his actual birthday only in years when the third Monday is the 15th.

Are the FBI's files on Martin Luther King, Jr. still sealed?

The surveillance tapes and transcripts placed under seal by a January 1977 court order remain closed, and the National Archives says they become available for research in 2027. A separate release of 243,496 pages on King's assassination came out in July 2025.

Martin Luther King Day

Next celebratedMonday, January 18, 2027

Before the Senate voted King a holiday, Jesse Helms asked it to open the FBI's surveillance files on him; it refused, 3 to 90, and passed the bill the next day. The files stay sealed until 2027.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEThird Monday in January

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYFederal

ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY

The United States Congress

FIRST OBSERVED

1983

“The act's operative words: "Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the third Monday in January."

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Fifteen years of failed bills, then one line of law.

Congress made the third Monday in January a legal public holiday by Public Law 98-144, which named it the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and which President Ronald Reagan signed on November 2, 1983, fifteen years after Rep. John Conyers, Jr. introduced the first such bill. Section 2 of the act delayed the first observance to Monday, January 20, 1986.

Read Public Law 98-144via U.S. Government Publishing Office

INTRO

What the Senate voted not to read in 1983

Jesse Helms wanted the Senate to read the federal government's files on Martin Luther King, Jr. before it voted him a holiday. On October 18, 1983, the Senate refused, 3 to 90. The next day it passed the bill that created Martin Luther King Day.

Those files are still shut. A January 1977 court order put the FBI's surveillance tapes and transcripts on King into the custody of the National Archives "under seal for a period of fifty (50) years," barring release without a further court order. The Archives says the fifty-six linear feet of it become available for research in 2027.

Martin Luther King Day is a legal public holiday under federal law, and a second statute makes the same date a national day of service. Getting it onto the calendar at all took fifteen years.

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AT A GLANCE

The day as federal law writes it

Legal name: Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Federal statute: 5 U.S.C. 6103(a)
Enacting act: Public Law 98-144 (H.R. 3706, 98th Congress)
Delay clause: the first January 1 after two years from enactment
First observance: Monday, January 20, 1986
Service law: Public Law 103-304, the King Holiday and Service Act of 1994

ORIGINS

Martin Luther King Day history

INTRODUCTION

Four days after King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, Rep. John Conyers, Jr. introduced a bill to make his birthday a federal holiday. It went nowhere. So did the next one, and the next.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference delivered petitions with three million signatures in April 1971. Nothing moved. In the 95th Congress Conyers's bills carried 99 cosponsors, and neither chamber held a hearing.

CHAPTER 01

The vote a majority lost

On November 13, 1979, the House finally voted. The bill won, 252 to 133, and failed anyway. It had come up under suspension of the rules, which takes two thirds: with 385 voting, the threshold was 257 and it fell five votes short.

In December the House tried again and made things worse. Members moved the holiday onto the third Monday, the date it eventually got, then swapped that for the third Sunday. The bill's manager had the Committee of the Whole rise without finishing, and it died there.

Rep. Cardiss Collins, the Congressional Black Caucus chair, said "racism had a part to do" with the refusal.

CHAPTER 02

A first-term congresswoman takes the bill

Katie Hall came to the House at the 1982 election. An Indiana state senator, she was picked to fill an unexpired term and entered a full one without a primary. The Congressional Black Caucus made her bill the vehicle.

Hall introduced H.R. 3706 on July 29, 1983. Four days later the House discharged the committee under suspension and passed it 338 to 90. She managed it on the floor herself, chairing neither the committee nor the subcommittee with jurisdiction.

CHAPTER 03

Two days in the Senate

The bill reached the Senate floor with no committee vote and no report. Senators rejected twelve amendments in two days, and a motion to bury it in the Judiciary Committee lost 12 to 76. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan held up a binder of FBI documents on King, called it "the filth in this brown binder", and threw it down.

The Senate passed it 78 to 22 on October 19, Strom Thurmond voting yes. Reagan signed it in the Rose Garden on November 2, 1983, speaking at 11:06 a.m., and Coretta Scott King spoke after him. Section 2 then kept it off the calendar until Monday, January 20, 1986.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Conyers files the first bill

Four days after the assassination in Memphis, Rep. John Conyers, Jr. introduced the first bill for a federal King holiday.

The House turns it down

H.R. 5461 was called up under suspension of the rules and lost on roll call 651, 252 to 133.

The holiday becomes law

H.R. 3706 passed the House 338 to 90 in August and the Senate 78 to 22 in October, and the president signed it on November 2.

First federal observance

Proclamation 5431 marked Monday, January 20 as the first observance of King's birthday as a national holiday.

A second law adds service

The King Holiday and Service Act became Public Law 103-304 on August 23, making the federal holiday a national day of service.

Arkansas ends its joint holiday

Act 561 of the 91st General Assembly eliminated the dual status of the joint holiday commemorating King and Robert E. Lee.

I would have preferred a day similar to, say, Lincoln's birthday, which is not technically a national holiday, but is certainly a day reverenced by a great many people in our country ... I would have preferred that, but since they seem bent on making it a national holiday, I believe the symbolism of that day is important enough that I'll sign that legislation when it reaches my desk.

Ronald ReaganPresident of the United States, at his news conference on October 19, 1983

In his own life's example, he symbolized what was right about America, what was noblest and best, what human beings have pursued since the beginning of history. He loved unconditionally.

Coretta Scott KingSpeaking in the Rose Garden after the president, at the signing on November 2, 1983

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Martin Luther King Day Matters

SERVICE

One day, two statutes: a holiday and a day of service.

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who had marched with King, sponsored the second statute. AmeriCorps runs its grant program now, and describes the point as mobilizing Americans to observe the holiday as a day of service in communities.

PRECEDENT

A public holiday for a private citizen

In 1979 House Republicans' minority views held that "the establishment of a public holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to our country's longstanding tradition." Reagan reached for the same precedent from the other side, saying a national holiday had "only been named for one American in all our history up until this time."

RECORDS

The King archive is still opening

In July 2025 the National Archives released 243,496 pages on King's assassination, under Executive Order 14176 of January 23, 2025. That body of records is not the surveillance material a court sealed in 1977, which stays closed until 2027.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Martin Luther King Day

Two senators tried to move it to a Sunday

Sen. Humphrey's amendment for the third Sunday in January lost 16 to 74, and Sen. Grassley's third-Sunday National Heroes Day Commission lost on a voice vote. A Sunday holiday costs no work time.

Two amendments would have capped federal holidays at nine

Sen. Helms proposed a Thomas Jefferson holiday and a holiday honoring Hispanic Americans, each carrying a nine-holiday ceiling. They lost 10 to 82 and 4 to 93.

Arizona put the holiday to a popular vote twice

Two competing King measures shared the 1990 ballot, Propositions 301 and 302, and both were rejected. In 1992 voters approved Proposition 300 by 880,488 to 555,189.

South Carolina kept the day optional until 2000

Act No. 246 made it a regular state holiday effective May 1, 2000, and the same amendment made Confederate Memorial Day a regular holiday in the same sentence.

The act said exactly where to put the line

Public Law 98-144 ordered the new holiday inserted "immediately below the item relating to New Year's Day", which is why King's name sits second in a list of eleven.

GOOD TO KNOW

What each statute calls the day

Alabama

Ala. Code 1-3-8(a)(2) lists "Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and Robert E. Lee's birthday" on the third Monday in January.

Mississippi

Miss. Code 3-3-7(1) names both birthdays, and makes that day one of only two legal holidays a county or city may not swap for another.

Idaho

Idaho Code 73-108 calls the third Monday in January "Martin Luther King, Jr.-Idaho Human Rights Day".

Arizona

A.R.S. 1-301(A)(3) carries the compound name "Martin Luther King, Jr./Civil Rights Day".

New Hampshire

RSA 288:1 names it "Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Day", wording its own source note dates to two 1999 chapters.

Virginia

Va. Code 2.2-3300 gives King the day alone: "Martin Luther King, Jr., Day to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., (1929-1968), defender of causes."

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Martin Luther King Day

Join a day of service project

AmeriCorps funds the projects that run on the holiday, and its grant program is the federal end of the day. Find one that needs hands where you live.

CARRY

Carry the commitment past the one day

AmeriCorps says the purpose of the day's projects is to encourage those who serve on the holiday to make a long-term commitment to community service. Pick something you can still be doing in February.

READ

Read the act that created the holiday

The whole thing runs to one operative sentence and a delay clause, printed at 97 Stat. 917. It fills a single page of the Statutes at Large, at the end of a fight that ran fifteen years.

Search the King records the archives have opened

The National Archives has posted its collection on King's assassination, released in July 2025. It is a research collection rather than a summary, so go in with a question.

READ

Read Coretta Scott King's words at the signing

She spoke immediately after Reagan in the Rose Garden, and the full transcript carries her remarks alongside his. She called her husband the country's preeminent nonviolent commander.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Martin Luther King Day?

1 / 7

What name does federal law give the holiday?

Answer

Yes. Federal law lists it as a legal public holiday on the third Monday in January, under the name Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

25sources

22primary records

18independently dated

Primary records

Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives2026

5 USC 6103: Holidays

The federal list of legal public holidays, with King's day named second.