After four unsuccessful election attempts, Evan Mecham took office as Governor of Arizona in 1987. His first official act was to rescind his predecessor’s executive order creating the Martin Luther King Jr holiday in the state.
A week after Dr. King was murdered at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968, John Conyers introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to make King’s birthday, January 15th, a national holiday. The bill went to committee, never to be seen again. Five years later, Illinois became the first state to institute a MLK holiday. Several other states followed.
Another attempt in 1979, endorsed by President Jimmy Carter, was defeated in the House by five votes. In 1983 Republican Jack Kemp and Democrat Katie Hall wrote a new bill that the House passed. Despite rabid opposition by racist Jesse Helms, the Senate passed it and President Ronald Reagan signed it. New Hampshire was the last state to recognize the holiday, in 1999. Keeping irony alive, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi celebrate Robert E. Lee on the same day.
Back in Arizona, the new Governor’s action resulted in Stevie Wonder cancelling a concert schedule in Tucson.
Other entertainers followed. In the next few months, seventeen conventions moved their meetings to outside Arizona. Staunchly independent, the state’s voters twice rejected referenda to institute the holiday.
The voters had called the National Football League’s bluff. Except the NFL wasn’t bluffing; it carried out its threat to move the 1993 Super Bowl. Voters quickly approved a new referendum and became the first state to have a voter-approved MLK holiday. Tempe hosted Super Bowl XXX in 1996.
To honor tradition, three years ago a fraternity at Arizona State University marked the holiday with a party featuring people dressed as their favorite racial stereotypes. The fraternity’s charter was suspended and ASU issued a statement with the usual blather about the diversity of its student body and it “will not tolerate…”
And Evan Mecham? Prompted by a recall petition and six felony indictments from a grand jury, the Arizona House impeached him, the Senate convicted him and he was removed from office in 1988.
The Martin Luther King JR holiday is celebrated on the third Monday in January.
