When is Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year and why is it celebrated?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up this month, a federal holiday honoring the life and birthday of the influential civil rights leader.

Here's everything you need to know about the upcoming holiday, why we celebrate it and why it's more than just a long weekend.

When is MLK Jr. Day 2024?

This year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be recognized on Monday, Jan. 15. While the holiday is always celebrated on the third Monday of January, this year it will fall on King's birthday.

The holiday is one of several that fall on a specific Monday each year, thanks to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. The law was enacted so that workers would have several long weekends throughout the year, including Washington's Birthday (Presidents Day), Memorial Day and Columbus Day.

Where, when was Martin Luther King born?

King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia.

According to Britannica, King started Morehouse College at age 15 and received a bachelor's in sociology before following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by becoming a Baptist minister. He received a bachelor of divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951 and a Ph.D from Boston University in 1955.

Who shot Martin Luther King?

James Earl Ray, a fugitive convicted of armed robbery, pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, to the first degree murder of King. He was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee state penitentiary.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Ray attempted to withdraw his guilty plea within days, and, "until his death in April 1998, he maintained that he did not shoot Dr. King and was framed by a man he knew only as Raoul."

Alternative theories have circulated for years on who killed the civil rights leader, and King's family have long maintained that Ray did not pull the trigger, according to the Washington Post.

When did MLK Jr. Day become a holiday?

Legislation to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day was initially introduced a mere four days after his April 4, 1968, assassination, according to the Smithsonian Institute.

But it wasn't until Nov. 2, 1983 — after 15 years of activists campaigning for a holiday recognizing King and increasing public support with help from musician Stevie Wonder — that President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law. Since then, the third Monday in January has been a federal holiday to commemorate the civil rights leader.

The holiday has been recognized in all 50 states since early 2000.

Why do we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day?

The holiday is set aside to honor the life and work of Dr. King, and for Americans to "reflect on the principles of racial equality and nonviolent social change espoused by Dr. King," according to Britannica.

It is also the only federal holiday set aside as a national day of service, meant to be "a day on, not a day off," according to the Department of the Interior.

Coretta Scott King once said, according to the department, "The greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: When is MLK Jr. Day 2024? What to know about the federal holiday