MLK Day closures and the Dream
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Government offices, banks, schools, and post offices will be closed in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 15.
All local governments, except for the city of Meadowlakes, will be closed on Monday.
The city of Bertram will be closed on Monday but in observance of Human Rights Day rather than MLK Day. Human Rights Day is officially observed internationally on Dec. 10 every year.
MLK Day is a holiday for the Burnet, Marble Falls, and Llano school districts.
BCISD students typically participate in the MLK Day of Service on the holiday, but it was canceled due to a forecast of freezing temperatures on Monday. The service day may be rescheduled for a later date with better weather. MLK Day is recognized as a national day of service as well as a federal and state holiday.
Banks, post offices, and state and federal offices will be closed on Monday.
Most businesses will maintain regular hours.
MLK’S DREAM
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed on the third Monday in January. The civil rights leader was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
King was famous for his leadership in and dedication to the African-American civil rights movement of the 1960s. He delivered his iconic and historic “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
One of the most recognizable lines from King’s speech reads:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
The speech is filled with passion for the plight of disenfranchised Black people enduring intense legal and social discrimination in the wake of Jim Crow laws that legalized segregation.
King’s speech lifted hearts and hopes for a better future:
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be engulfed, every hill shall be exalted and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
“This is our hope, this is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
“This will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!’
“And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.”