Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ was written to promote MLK Day

Every yr, we have fun and commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and legacy on the third Monday of January. The vacation all the time falls between Jan. 15 and Jan. 21, aligning it with the date of King’s birthday, Jan. 15.

But it hasn’t all the time been this fashion. MLK Day formally grew to become a federal vacation with the passage of a 1983 legislation, and it was first noticed in 1986.

Some folks have questioned if Stevie Wonder’s track “Happy Birthday,” which incorporates King’s title within the lyrics, is linked to the vacation. One social media post from 2022’s MLK Day claimed that the track was written to promote the motion to make MLK Day a federal vacation.

Did Stevie Wonder produce the track “Happy Birthday” to help making Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a nationwide vacation?

Yes, Stevie Wonder did produce the track “Happy Birthday” to help making Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a nationwide vacation.

Stevie Wonder was closely concerned within the motion to make Martin Luther King, Jr. Day a nationwide vacation. His track “Happy Birthday” is specific in its lyrics that King’s birthday must be celebrated as a nationwide vacation.

The second verse of the track begins, “I just never understood / How a man who died for good / Could not have a day that would / Be set aside for his recognition.” That verse then ends by naming the person in query: “For in peace our hearts will sing / Thanks to Martin Luther King.”

The track was a part of Wonder’s 1980 album “Hotter than July,” and was launched because the album’s fourth single in 1981. The unique vinyl sleeve for the album, the Atlanta History Center says, straight advocated for King’s birthday to turn into a nationwide vacation.

“I and a growing number of people believe that it is time for our country to adopt legislation that will make January 15, Martin Luther King’s birthday, a national holiday, both in recognition of what he achieved and as a reminder of the distance which still has to be traveled,” Wonder wrote on the sleeve. “Join me in the observance of January 15, 1981, as a national holiday. Stevland Morris a/k/a Stevie Wonder”

According to Motown Records, the document label which launched the track, “Happy Birthday” grew to become the signature track of the marketing campaign.

But Wonder didn’t wait till 1981 to become involved. 

“He had already been working on it for a couple of years along with Coretta King,” mentioned Kevin Fellezs, Ph.D., an assistant professor of music and African American research at Columbia University. 

After a invoice to observe the day failed to go the House of Representatives by 5 votes in 1979, public help for the invoice continued to develop “in no small part due to musician Stevie Wonder,” says the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The musician appeared alongside Coretta Scott King in rallies many instances over the following few years. Motown Records says he led a march of 100,000 in Washington, D.C., in 1981, and he took half in another rally on the Washington Monument in 1983.

By the time a invoice that might designate King’s birthday a nationwide vacation returned to the House flooring in 1983, Coretta Scott King, the Congressional Black Caucus and Stevie Wonder had labored collectively to current the chamber with a petition of 6 million signatures in help of the invoice.

The invoice simply handed the House, however was briefly held up within the Senate. When Wonder took half within the Aug. 27, 1983, rally for the twentieth anniversary of the March on Washington, the invoice had nonetheless not but handed the Senate. He advised the group to be a part of him in urging their senators to vote sure on the invoice earlier than main the group in a rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

The invoice finally handed the Senate, and President Ronald Reagan signed it into legislation in November 1983. The vacation was first noticed in 1986.