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Reagan didn't sign "the order creating the Dr. Martin Luther King national holiday"-he resisted demands from Dems for a federal MLK holiday, said it was too costly & be inappropriate, & let Senate republicans filibuster before buckling to political pressure & signing the bill.
May, 1982: Reagan was sympathetic, but it's a slippery slope to too many federal holidays! 
August 2, 1983: the Democratic House finally passes an MLK holiday bill, but the Reagan administration still opposed it, citing how much shutting down the government for a day would cost. #VisionaryLeadership
August 6, 1983: Reagan starts to signal he's bowing to political pressure, even as conservative Senate Republicans, led by Jesse Helms, prepare to filibuster the measure.
October 20, 1983: It's conservative Republicans holding up passage.
October 21, 1983: John Bircher former Republican governor of New Hampshire Meldrim Thomson releases a letter from Reagan saying he agreed with him on MLK:
Said Reagan: "On the national holiday you mentioned, I have the reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on an image, not reality. Indeed to them, the perception is reality. We hope some modifications might still take place in Congress."
When asked about MLK's alleged communist sympathies, Reagan alluded to secret government documents and only replied "We'll know in about 35 years, won't we?"
A real champion of King, Reagan was.
A real champion of King, Reagan was.
I guess bursting powerful myths used by ideologues to advance their political agendas in the present is what we now call "fact-grubbing."
