I'd never had a white person talk to me like that,' Warren Stewart Sr. says, recalling the late Gov. Evan Mecham and the Arizona battle over MLK Day.

Evan Mecham. On Jan. 12, 1987, Mecham rescinded a 1986 executive order by previous Gov. Bruce Babbitt to create the holiday after the Legislature failed to pass by one vote. The state lost more ...

In 1987, Gov. Evan Mecham fulfilled a promise to cancel an executive order from former Gov. Bruce Babbitt that would have made MLK Day an Arizona holiday. In 1990, the state put it up for a vote ...

Evan Mecham, who opposed the holiday, and widespread disdain and boycotts of Arizona from the likes of musicians, businesses and the National Football League. Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt read his ...

Most of the foot-dragging came from the South — except for Arizona. Then in 1987, Gov. Evan Mecham rescinded his predecessor's executive order enacting a state holiday in Arizona. “He said ...

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He chose that location in part to honor President Abraham Lincoln as “a great ...