You owe it to yourself and the struggle to take off work the federal and state legal holiday, Martin Luther King's birthday, celebrated today, January 18, 2010. If your reactionary employer does not provide it as a paid holiday, take it as a vacation day or sick day. Listen to King's speeches online. It is winter in most of the US, a good day to stay home and rest.

Only 1/3 of employers offer the King Birthday as a legal holiday, a sign that they understand and oppose the revolutionary, labor organizing implications of the civil rights struggle epitomized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was assassinated leading a labor march in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968 at age 39, and was about to lead a Poor People's March on Washington, uniting the entire workingclass.

We won the King Birthday as a federal holiday in 1983 and it became effective in 1986. By 1989, 44 states had made it a state holiday. In 1992, Arizona finally made it a state holiday under threat of economic boycott. In 1999, New Hampshire made it a state holiday, and in 2000, Utah and South Carolina finally joined the rest of this country in saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BROTHER MARTIN!

For more history, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Day

Here are some of King's speeches in PDF format:

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mlkspeeches.html

and a great audio compilation is, as usual, on Democracy Now, at:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/18/dr_martin_luther_king_jr_1929

and more at

http://www.mlkonline.net/sounds.html

All of the civil rights struggles, including but not limited to the women's liberation and gay liberation movements, owe their foundation to the black liberation movement, of which Martin Luther King was a part.

And best of all, here is Stevie Wonder's song, Happy Birthday song for MLK, that made the federal holiday possible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNAy6Bhij8A