The first bill proposing MLK’s birthday as a federal holiday was brought to the House of Representatives by John Conyers of Michigan on April 8, 1968, four days after King’s assassination. It wasn’t even given a floor vote. Conyers reintroduced a bill every year, finally getting a vote in 1979. The measure fell five votes short of passage.
J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, was out to destroy MLK. He was worried King…