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Jan. 20 (UPI) -- The United States is paying tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's legacy the same day a new president was inaugurated. "Let's use today to remember that even in the midst of Jim Crow, Civil Rights Leaders pushed on!" Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Tex., wrote Monday on social media about the nation's 39th MLK Day.
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Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2025 takes place on Jan. 20 and is celebrated on the third Monday of January each year to remember King's birthday on Jan. 15.
However, the federal holiday fell on Donald Trump's second inauguration day in Washington. Two other inaugurations occurred on MLK Day: Bill Clinton in 1997 and Barack Obama in 2013.
King, who would be 96 years old, was the driving force behind the U.S. civil rights movement.
On Monday, Rev. Al Sharpton held a rally in the nation's capital starting at noon at Washington's Metropolitan AME Church where Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks are laid to rest.
Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, held events in New York City over the week of King's Jan. 15 birthday.
King's nonviolent efforts to achieve social and racial equality came to signify a transformative chapter in American history, culminating in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
"We have been here before & moved this country forward," Crockett said. "We won't let any temporary setbacks be anything more than temporary."
King's influence reached new heights as his peaceful protests exerted pressure on Southern lawmakers to dismantle racist and segregationist practices rooted in the era of Jim Crow, leading to many pivotal moments in the arduous journey toward civil rights, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 and the March on Washington in 1963, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Events around nation
A series of MLK Day events and celebrations across the nation Monday honored the late civil rights leader, and a number of businesses and government agencies will be closed.
"I would hope the 4th of July is a time when Americans think about why their nation was founded in the way that it was. I would hope that we would still take time on Martin Luther King Day to think about what we can still do to make that a better nation," Dr. David Throp, an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, told 59 News in Virginia.
This year's MLK Day Beloved Community Commemorative Service will be held at King's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta with 2025's theme "Mission Possible: Protecting Freedom, Justice, and Democracy in the Spirit of Nonviolence365."
"As we celebrate Dr. King today," said Ebenezer Baptist co-pastor and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia. "We must keep in mind his vision of the beloved community in everything we do," he added, "not just today, but every single day."
"This year it feels more pertinent than ever," Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., said on social media of a need to understand a "full, unsanitized version" of King.
King, according to Lee, "called out racism, economic exploitation and militarism as the 'three evils of society.'"
"I tried to love and serve humanity," the late Dr. King said.
A handful of state and local officials attended events in New York and neighboring New Jersey.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, the first woman to hold the job in Albany, attended an event at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem hosted by the Baptist Ministers Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity.
However, New York Mayor Eric Adams, the second Black person elected to the city's top job, opted to attend Trump's inauguration instead at the last-minute as rumors swirl that he's seeking a pardon from Trump.
A day of service
In 1994, President Clinton signed into legislation making it a National Day of Service on Jan. 20.
The day is "designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer and improve their communities," according to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Dr. David Thorp said it's important to know what the holiday means.
"I would hope the 4th of July is a time when Americans think about why their nation was founded in the way that it was. I would hope that we would still take time on Martin Luther King Day to think about what we can still do to make that a better nation," Throp, an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, said.
More than 1,000 volunteers at 27 sites in Palm Beach County celebrated King, which marked this year's largest known MLK Day of Service event.
Attendees performed services like packing meals for those less fortunate, visiting senior living facilities to local animal shelters.
What's open, closed
While the United States Postal Service will not be delivering mail Monday, FedEx will have modified operations. UPS domestic ground, air and international shipping also will be closed but stores will be open.
Meanwhile, bank branches like Wells Fargo, Citibank and TD Bank will be closed. But ATMs will operate per usual. And "nonessential" government offices like the DMV will be closed.
In addition to other large restaurant chains major U.S. retailers like Costco, Walmart, Kroger, Sam's Club and Target will stay.
MLK Day is one of seven free entrance days this year for America's national parks
History of MLK Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day has come to be recognized in all 50 states and remains the only federal holiday that is also designated as a National Day of Service to encourage volunteerism.
The inaugural holiday took place on Jan. 20, 1986, some 18 years after King's death following signing of the King Holiday Bill in November 1983 by President Ronald Reagan.
It marked the culmination of a 15-year congressional battle to establish it after Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., had initially proposed MLK Day in a bill four days after King's assassination on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
It took Conyers 11 years from his first motion before the bill was brought to a vote in 1979 under the Carter presidency.
New Hampshire in 1999 became the last stat to adopt a holiday for King.
"May we rise to this moment in history and finish the work [King's] dream demands," Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., posted Monday on X.
