A Day On, Not a Day Off

In 1994, President Bill Clinton transformed the King Holiday into a day of service. With the support of Senator Harris Wofford, Representative John Lewis, and Coretta Scott King, Clinton yoked the holiday to his volunteer community service agenda. After creating AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), Clinton and his allies ushered the King Holiday and Service Act of 1994 through Congress. Inspired by King’s Drum Major Instinct sermon they shifted the holiday’s emphasis away from the sanitized balm of King’s I Have a Dream speech and Clinton argued that Americans could use the holiday to finish King’s agenda. He, Wofford, Lewis, and Coretta Scott King, wanted a day on, not a day off, to participate in volunteer community service. Yet, the concept had neoliberal overtones that can be traced to Clinton’s New Democrat ideals. Clinton hoped to tackle poverty without expanding welfare. Compared to Republican and House speaker Newt Gingrich, however, who wanted to abolish welfare altogether, AmeriCorps offered a “third way” between liberalism and conservatism.