MLK holiday is her legacy

SOUTH BEND - Former Indiana U.S. Rep. Katie Hall, a key sponsor of the 1983 legislation that established a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. She was 73.

Hall's husband, John Henry Hall, said she died Monday at Methodist Hospitals' Northlake campus in Gary from an undisclosed illness.

Although she was just a freshman congresswoman at the time, Hall was credited with playing a key role in getting the King holiday approved after it stalled in the House the previous 14 years. She sought the chairmanship of a Post Office and Civil Service subcommittee so she could get the bill moving and held hearings, bringing in King's widow, Coretta, singer Stevie Wonder, Sen. Edward Kennedy and House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill.

"Sometimes when you get to the goal line it's good to go to someone fresh and new to take it over. She brought a freshness of approach, a spirit of reconciliation to what had sometimes been a bitter battle," Rep. William H. Gray III, a Philadelphia Democrat, said at the time.

John Henry Hall said his wife's work on that bill was the accomplishment of which she was most proud.

"She was there with President Reagan as well as Coretta Scott King and others when the president signed it. It was one of the highlights of her career, tremendously so," he said.