King Days

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a political activist, a hero and leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., which lasted from 1954 to 1968 – the year when King was assasinated.

In November 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill from Congress that delcared the third Monday of January a federal holiday in honor and memory of King. To make it on the same level as Presidents Day a month later – which replaced Washington and Lincoln’s birthday – some of us affectionately call his day, King Day.

Incidentally, when I was seven years old, my mother remarried and we moved from New Orleans to the Boston area. I remember my step-father telling me what to expect when I got to Boston. I asked if they had a king in Massachusetts. He said they didn’t; they had a president. I said, “Here we have a king: Martin Luther King.” He didn’t correct me. He just chuckled. I thought Martin Luther King was a king. Maybe I was right in a way.

The U.S. was slow to accept the change: the first celebrated in January 1986, over two years later. The U.S. stamps in this album were issued starting in late 1985 as the first King Day was approaching. The significance of this day, like when the Bureau of Engraving took over printing U.S. stamps, or when the World Wars ended and the U.S. felt proud and bold, and when they started printing multicolor stamps, is that the attitude of the Post Office with regards to stamps and the attitude of the public towards each other changed.

The start of King Days was because of a growing appreciation and respect for a diverse America, which is subtly reflected in the stamps of this time: the Black Heritage series and other stamps of many Americans and not just presidents start dominating stamp issues – leading up to the first King Day and afterwards. America was becoming diverse and comfortable and proud of its diversity – despite what a few people may say. This shift appears in the stamps issued by the Post Office.

Note

I have almost all of the stamps in this album. The few I’m missing, I’ve purchased recently. I just need to put them in the pages and update my database. There are plenty of pages, though. I have to write stories for each page. That takes a good bit of time. I may end this album with the stamps from 1999, or I may end it on a sooner date. I haven’t decided yet.

The table below lists the pages that are missing stamps, or missing stories, descriptions of the pages. Once I have all of the stamps, stories, and notes for a page, it will be removed from this table.

remaining stamps & stories in sub-album

page	story	note	need

Old Transports (Definitives)	✓	✓	1
Pre-Canceled (Definitives)	✓	✓	1
Bulk & Zip+4 (Definitives)	✓	✓	1
Apgar & White (Definitives)	✓	✓	3
Boreal Owl (Definitives)	✓	✓	1
Pledge (Definitives)	✓	✓	1
Cog Railway (Definitives)	✓	✓	1