Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 102 Part 5.djvu/940

 102 STAT. 4946

PROCLAMATION 5760—JAN. 12, 1988

eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands." Those demands, he saw, were claims to the orginal promise of the truths our Founders proclaimed "self-evident"—that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," among them the "rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." He called these words a "promissory note to which every American was to fall heir," and he insisted that what was centuries overdue could no longer be delayed. Martin Luther King's words were eloquent because they were borne not by his tongue alone but by his very being; not by his being alone but by the beings of every one of his fellow black Americans who felt the lash and the sting of bigotry; and not by the living alone but by every generation that had gone before him in the chains of slavery or separation. He brought light to the victims of segregation, but he brought light as well—in a way, illumined by faith, more sorely needed—to its perpetrators. He saw how evil could crush the spirit of both the oppressor and the oppressed, but whereas "unearned suffering" was redemptive, those who were motivated by hatred and inflicted pain had no recourse but to abandon the instruments of prejudice and to change heart. Through his evocation, by his words and his presence, of transcendent ideals, Martin Luther King pierced to the heart of American society and changed it, irrevocably, for the better. He, and all those who marched with him, overcame. As they did so, so too did the America that Lincoln had said could not stand divided—transmuted now through the toil and blood of its fallen heroes into a land more wholly free. The work of justice and freedom continues, but its goal is less distant, its hardships more tolerable, and its triumph more sure. For these gifts to our Nation, during his lifetime and in the decades past and to come, all Americans join in fitting celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. By Public Law 98-144, the third Monday in January of each year has been designated as a public holiday in honor of the "Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr." NOW, THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Monday, January 18, 1988, as Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 12th day of January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twelfth. RONALD REAGAN Editorial note. For the President's remarks of Jan. 12, 1988, on signing Proclamation 5760, see the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 24, p. 26).

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