Martin Luther King Jr. Day, First National Celebration, 1986

On 20 January 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first officially commemorated by the federal government in the United States.

While establishment figures now try to claim King as their own, when he was alive he was deeply unpopular amongst white people and the rich and powerful.

Fuelled by negative media coverage, only 22% of Americans approved of Freedom rides for the desegregation of public transport, and 63% disapproved of King. The FBI's domestic intelligence chief called him "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security", and later sent King an anonymous letter attempting to blackmail him into suicide.

Even middle class liberals became upset with him as he became increasingly radical: calling himself a socialist, criticising colonialism, imperialism, the Vietnam war and capitalism and launching a multiracial Poor People's Campaign, before his life was cut short by a white supremacist as he supported striking sanitation workers.

Later, politicians like Chuck Grassley and John McCain opposed the creation of his holiday.

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