January 15 is the day people across the nation remember and honor slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Annually celebrated on the third Monday of January, this year the federal holiday falls on the revered civil rights icon’s actual birthday.

Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated on April 4, 1968 while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. Four days later, legislation was introduced to make King’s birthday a federal holiday. More than a decade later, in 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the measure into law. The holiday aligns with the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, which ensures a number of federal holidays, including Memorial Day and Labor Day, are observed on a Monday to guarantee a long weekend.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the living memorial established in 1968 by civil rights activist and MLK’s widow Coretta Scott King, proclaims an annual theme. This year, the nonprofit’s theme is ‘Shifting the Cultural Climate through the Study and Practice of Kingian Nonviolence.” The center also hosts an annual commemorative program on Martin Luther King Day. A live stream of this year’s program, which starts at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta at 10 a.m. EST ( 9 a.m. CST), is also available to watch on YouTube.