Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 13 / Thursday, January 22, 2021 / Presidential Documents 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 


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6556 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 13 / Thursday, January 22, 2021 / Presidential Documents 

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 fortyfifth. 

[FR Doc. 2021–01565 

Filed 1–21–21; 8:45 am] 

Billing code 3295–F1–P 


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