[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 13 (Friday, January 22, 2021)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 6555-6556]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-01565]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 13 / Thursday, January 22, 2021 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 6555]]
Proclamation 10135 of January 15, 2021
Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday, 2021
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
On August 28, 1963, just a century after the
Emancipation Proclamation, the Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. led more than 200,000 Americans in a
March on Washington in pursuit of jobs and freedom for
all people. Standing on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial, he called on Americans ``to sit down together
at the table of brotherhood'' and meet our promise of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. On
that historic day, and throughout his life, Dr. King
exemplified the quintessential American belief that we
will leave a brighter, more prosperous future for our
children. Today, we honor and celebrate Dr. King, a
giant of the civil rights movement whose nonviolent
resistance to the injustices of his era--racial
segregation, employment discrimination, and the denial
of the right to vote--enlightened our Nation and the
world.
In the face of tumult and upheaval, Dr. King reminded
us to always meet anger with compassion in order to
truly ``heal the hurts, right the wrongs and change
society.'' It is with this same spirit of forgiveness
that we come together to bind the wounds of past
injustice by lifting up one another regardless of race,
gender, creed, or religion, and rising to the first
principles enshrined in our founding documents. Indeed,
Dr. King described our Constitution and Declaration of
Independence as promissory notes left by our Founding
Fathers for ``every American to fall heir.'' His dream,
rooted in the American Dream, was that our children
might be ``judged not by the color of their skin, but
by the content of their character.'' This dream, he
hoped, would finally let freedom ring for all people.
As Dr. King stated in 1961, at the heart of his dream
is ``equality of opportunity.'' For Dr. King, the march
toward civil rights is intertwined with economic
empowerment. My Administration has fully embraced this
spirit, taking historic action to create jobs and
uplift every community across our country and reaching
the lowest unemployment rate for Black Americans ever
recorded. Through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, we
created nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones that have
produced more than $75 billion in new investment in
distressed neighborhoods. My Administration has
supported our Nation's incredible Historically Black
Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in several ways,
including by establishing the President's Board of
Advisors on HBCUs, reauthorizing more than $85 million
in funding for them through the FUTURE Act, and
allocating $930 million in higher education emergency
relief through the CARES Act. As President, I have
fully committed to the educational and economic
empowerment of minority communities and young people
across our Nation--and the progress we have made must
continue into the future.
It is clear now more than ever before that we can no
longer allow the American Dream to be deferred for
Black Americans. However, in this march toward
equality, we cannot permit any ``creative protest to
degenerate into physical violence.'' As a student of
nonviolence, Dr. King called on us not to ``satisfy the
thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of
bitterness and hatred.'' In the national effort to
achieve freedom and equality, and in this shared love
of country, we must endeavor with all our might to
[[Page 6556]]
meet the promissory notes endowed to us by our Founding
Fathers, as Dr. King fervently wished.
With the same dream, faith, and hope championed by the
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we recommit to
upholding his legacy and meeting our sacred obligation
to protect the unalienable rights of all Americans.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the
United States, do hereby proclaim January 18, 2021, as
the Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday. On this
day, I encourage all Americans to recommit themselves
to Dr. King's dream by engaging in acts of service to
others, to their community, and to our Nation.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two
thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
fifth.
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 2021-01565
Filed 1-21-21; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3295-F1-P