MLK Day is a time to celebrate freedom and sacrifice
ESSENTIAL NEWS. January 8, 2026. Florida Weekly
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the only federal holiday celebrating the life of a Black American, arrives on the third Monday in January, which is Jan. 19, 2026.
In his short 39 years of life, King did more to advance the cause of freedom and justice in this country than most presidents or other elected leaders have over the course of their lifetimes.
While he never held public office, King led the nonviolent fight against racial discrimination that ultimately led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
He was the victim of illegal FBI persecution (sound familiar?), was jailed several times, but never gave up.
In 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting racial injustice—and he didn’t even have to lobby and beg for it like some people.
Posthumously, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 2011, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The federal holiday bearing his name was first observed in 1986.
King was an American hero. He fought—and died—for the most fundamental value of the United States: Freedom.
As a Christian minister, he championed the welfare of the poor. Indeed, he was planning a peaceful occupation of the nation’s capital to be called the Poor People’s Campaign when he was gunned down in Memphis in 1968.
He may be gone, but his legacy lives on, while the struggle against injustice continues.
His “I Have a Dream” speech is considered one of the most important in U.S. history, spoken of in the same breath as the words of Lincoln and Jefferson in terms of shaping the nation’s identity, according to “American Rhetoric.”
He was born on January 15, 1929, and would have been 97 years young this month. MLK Day moves around the calendar a bit each year so that it falls on a Monday, making a three-day weekend.
Enjoy the day off, if you get it.
Onward thru the Fog
To be the smartest person in the room—or the Zoom—use this helpful daily trivia to impress your friends and annoy your frenemies.
January 15 is National Pothole Day. Potholes are more of a problem up north, where roads freeze and crack. Here in Florida, we have something far more exciting: Sinkholes. They sometimes are so big they eat entire houses. There is no National Sinkhole Day. But there is Sinkhole de Mayo.
January 16. Book Publishers Day. Without publishers, Barnes and Noble would be empty and Jeff Bezos never would have gotten rich. Amazon, which he founded, started as a bookstore in 1994.
January 17. Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions Day. Most people give up about this time. You don’t have to be among them, but if you do, you’re not alone.
January 18. National Thesaurus Day. It’s a great, wonderful, stupendous, marvelous, fabulous time to celebrate words.
January 19. MLK Day is, in addition to a federal holiday, a state holiday in Florida. Then, again, the Free State of Florida also recognizes Jan. 19 as the traitor Robert E. Lee’s birthday. The struggle continues.
January 19 is also Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday. In addition to his famous poem, “The Raven,” he was a champion swimmer who once swam six miles upriver. The Baltimore Ravens football team adopted their name from his poem.
January 20. National Penguin Day. There is no truth to the rumor that the Free State of Florida, in the wake of its successful annual bear hunt, plans a penguin hunt. There are no native penguins in Florida or the rest of the United States, for that matter.
January 21. National Hugging Day. Here’s how you do it. Just wander over to some place where people gather—say, the nearest shopping mall—and walk up to a perfect stranger and ask if you can give them a hug. You might be surprised, startled, shocked, bewildered by the reaction you get. Let us know how it goes.
J.C. Bruce is an award-winning journalist and author of the Strange Files series of mysterious adventures. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and Florida. Check out his website, jcbruce.com, for details on how to order copies of his books. Copyright, 2026, J.C. Bruce