https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698021995932 Memory Studies 1–17 © The Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1750698021995932 journals.sagepub.com/home/mss Claiming Martin Luther King, Jr. for the right: The Martin Luther King Day holiday in the Reagan era Francesca Polletta University of California, USA Alex Maresca University of California, USA Abstract The article traces how American conservatives laid claim to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. We focus on a key moment in that process, when Republicans in the early 1980s battled other Republicans to establish King’s birthday as a federal holiday and thereby distinguish a conservative position on racial inequality from that associated with southern opposition to civil rights. The victory was consequential, aiding the New Right’s efforts to roll back gains on affirmative action and other race-conscious policies. We use the case to explore the conditions in which political actors are able to lay claim to venerated historical figures who actually had very different beliefs and commitments. The prior popularization of the figure makes it politically advantageous to identify with his or her legacy but also makes it possible to do so credibly. As they are popularized, the figure’s beliefs are made general, abstract, and often vague in a way that lends them to appropriation by those on the other side of partisan lines. Such appropriation is further aided by access to a communicative infrastructure of foundations, think tanks, and media outlets that allows political actors to secure an audience for their reinterpretation of the past. Keywords civil rights movement, collective memory, Martin Luther King, Jr., New Right, politics, social movements Introduction Conservative campus activists today invoke Martin Luther King, Jr. in their opposition to speech codes, affirmative action, and what they see as unjustified attacks on white privilege (Coltrain, 2018; Dietrich, 2015). They argue that while King fought for, and won, equality, other 1960s activ- ists then went much further, and too far, by demanding special rights and precisely the race-con- scious policy that King opposed. Indeed, they say, King’s legacy has been betrayed by the activists Corresponding author: Francesca Polletta, University of California, 3151 SSPA, Irvine CA 92697, USA. Email: polletta@uci.edu 995932MSS 0 0 10.1177/1750698021995932Memory StudiesPolletta and Maresca research-article 2021 Article