But when legislation was signed in 1983 making Martin Luther King Jr Day a federal holiday, it was scheduled to be observed on the third Monday in January.

And it's been that way since the first national observance in 1986.

Though federal employees and many other Americans don't have to work on Martin Luther King Day, the U.

S government recognizes this as a day of service a day on not a day off, with the goal of encouraging Americans to volunteer to improve their communities.

It's usually marked by speeches, marches and other events attended by civil rights leaders and US political figures.

Dr.

King, an American Baptist minister, felt that peaceful events like marches were the best way to achieve civil rights for African Americans.

He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957.

He led the march on Washington in 1963 where he delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the next year.

The man who in 1963 famously said that segregation and discrimination had kept black Americans from being free was himself awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom nine years after his assassination in 1968.

In honor of his civil rights accomplishments, we have a special feature on Martin Luther King.

Starting right now, CNN 10 is collaborating with the A T and T Youth Voices collective to help amplify youth voices.

So today, in commemoration of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

We'd like to welcome the students of the Harvard Diversity Project to share portions of some of Dr King's most famous and influential speeches.

The Harvard Diversity Project, based in Dr King's own hometown of Atlanta, is a pipeline program that recruits trains and matriculated, highly motivated black youth into a summer debate residency at Harvard.

Let's hear from the students, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.

It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream way cannot walk alone, and as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

Way cannot look back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights when we'll be satisfied.

No, no, no.

We are not satisfied.

And we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Yeah.

How long will it take?

Somebody's asking.

How long were prejudice?

Blind division of men, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour.

It will not be long because truth crushed to earth will rise again.

How long?

Not long.

Because my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

He has trained without the ventures where the grapes were at the store.

He is losing the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.

His truth is marching, going He has sounded for the trump unless shall never call retreat.

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat.

Oh, be swift, my soul to answer him.

Be jubilant, my feet.

Our God is marching on somewhere.

We must come to realize that human progress never rolls in on the wheel of inevitability.

It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co workers with God and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces.

A social stagnation and so way must always help time and realize that the time is always right to do right.

We mean business.

Now we're determined to get our rightful place in God's world.

That's all this whole thing is about.

We aren't engaged any negative protests or any negative arguments with anybody.

We're saying we're determined to be men were determined to be people.

We are saying We are saying we are God's Children and that we are God's Children We don't have to live like were forced to live.

Let us rise up tonight with the greater readiness.

Let us stand with greater determination.

Let us move on in these powerful days these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be.

We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its cream.

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little Children will one day live in a nation where they're not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today, and when we allow freedom to ring way, let it ring from every village and every Hamlet from every state and every city.

We will be able to speed up the day when all of God's Children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing, in the words of the old Negro spiritual free at last, free at last.