Inauguration days

(Jan. 19, 2013) Presidential inauguration day is tomorrow, Jan. 20. Because inauguration day falls on a Sunday this year, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the official oath of office to President Barack Obama in a private ceremony that day. The public swearing in on the Capitol Building’s West Front — at which Roberts will administer a second, symbolic oath of office — will take place the next day, Monday, Jan. 21, which in 2013 is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Obama will use two historic Bibles — one from the 1861 inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln, author of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the traveling Bible of Martin Luther King Jr., the slain black civil rights leader whose birthday is commemorated annually on the third Monday of January. King's actual birth date is Jan. 15, 1929, and he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

After a long struggle, legislation was signed in 1983 creating a federal holiday marking King's birthday. In 1994, Congress designated the holiday as a national day of service and charged the Corporation for National and Community Service with leading this effort. It  is the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service – a "day on, not a day off." The MLK Day of Service is part of United We Serve, the president's national call to service initiative. It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to the nation's most pressing problems. The Day of Service empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, creates solutions to social problems, and moves citizens closer to  King's vision of a "Beloved Community."

King believed in a nation of freedom and justice for all, and encouraged all citizens to live up to the purpose and potential of America by applying the principles of nonviolence to make this country a better place to live— creating the Beloved Community.

Most governmental offices will be closed on Monday. For more details on the holiday, check Recorder Community Newspapers. You can check the papers online here at newjerseyhills.com along with their blogs written by community volunteers. Any individual or local organization representative interested in joining the growing group of Recorder bloggers may contact me by telephone at (908) 832-7420 or via e-mail at panderson@recordernewspapers.com for information on this free, simple 21st communication tool.