MLK Day 2026: What’s Open And Closed In Ellicott City

ELLICOTT CITY, MD — Most state and federal offices in Maryland will be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.

There will be no mail delivery. FedEx will have modified services on MLK Day, while its freight, office, critical and logistics divisions will be open as usual. UPS will be closed for the day, but limited locations and its express critical service will be available.

Banks will be closed and both the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ will have the day off.

Retail stores, restaurants and many other businesses are open as usual, although some, including Patch, observe MLK Day as a paid holiday.

Howard County government offices, courts, 50+ centers and the county animal shelter will be closed Monday. There will be regular Monday curbside trash, recycling and food scrap collections on Monday and the Alpha Ridge Landfill will be open.

County parks, the Gary J. Arthur, North Laurel and Roger Carter Community Centers, Cedar Lane and Schooley Mill Activity Rooms, Kiwanis Wallas Hall, Harriet Tubman Cultural Center and the Meadowbrook Athletic Complex will be open Monday.

The Robinson Nature Center, Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum, Belmont Manor & Historic Park, Patapsco Female Institute and the county’s Restored Ellicott City Colored School will be closed. All historic sites in Ellicott City, except the Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum, are closed for weekend tours until the first weekend in May.

The Howard County Public School System buildings and offices will be closed Monday. The Howard County Library System also is closed Monday.

The Regional Transportation Agency will operate on a regular weekday schedule on Monday; for more information on RTA, call 1-800-270-9553 or visit www.transitrta.com. All parking regulations and fees will be in effect Monday. The 9-1-1 Center, police and fire departments remain staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For emergencies, call 9-1-1. For non-emergencies, please call 410-313-2200.

King is the only non-president to have a national holiday named in his honor. He also is the only non-president with a memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And Martin Luther King Jr. Day is the only federal holiday designated as a day of service.

The MLK monument and other iconic memorials on the National Mall are free to visit, but regular admission rates apply at museums or buildings within the mall area, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

There will be an 8 a.m. wreath-laying ceremony at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial site Monday, which is located at 1964 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C.

The 21st annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday DC Peace Walk and Parade will be Monday starting at 11 a.m. from Firth Sterling Avenue and Sumner Road SE to MLK Avenue to Marion Barry Avenue. This year's theme is “The Struggle is Real! THE FIGHT IS STILL!” The peace rally will start first at 9:30 a.m. on Firth Sterling Avenue at Sumner Road SE.

In the past, MLK Jr. Day was one of the National Park Service’s free-admission days. In November, President Donald Trump removed MLK Day and Juneteenth from park service free-admission days, and added Flag Day, his birthday, on June 14.

The action did not change the status of MLK Day as a federal holiday. The spirit of the holiday as a day for service and recognition of King’s legacy continues through events and volunteerism.

Starting at 6 p.m. Sunday, there will be a celebration in the Smith Theatre at Howard Community College’s Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, followed by a day of service on Monday.

The family-friendly, multi-cultural celebration on Sunday will include performances by diverse community groups, a keynote address by Gregory Yancey and recognition of the 2026 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Living the Dream” award recipients and student essay, oratory and poster contest winners. A reception with light fare served and live entertainment kicks off the event at 6 p.m., followed by an awards ceremony and celebration at 7 p.m.

Residents are encouraged to participate in Howard County’s day of service project on Monday when there will be several in-person projects ranging from food drives to activities at the county’s Harriett Tubman Cultural Center in Columbia. For a complete list of activities and opportunities, visit the commission’s website.

King’s widow, the late Coretta Scott King, once said the greatest birthday her husband could receive “is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others.”

The theme of the 2026 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance is “Mission Possible 2: Building Community, Uniting a Nation the Nonviolent Way.”

The King Center describes the theme as “a blueprint for action” for building “a world where injustice ends, violence is replaced by compassion, and love becomes the prevailing force.” Events that started Monday and continue through Jan. 19 focus on the legacy and unfinished work of King, a driving force behind watershed voting, housing and civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

In the mid-1950s, King led efforts to desegregate the South through non-violent protest. His speeches, including the “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington, are among the most iconic in U.S. history. It took 32 years for the federal government to finally approve a federal holiday celebrating King’s birthday.

At 35, King was the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the prize in 1964 for his work to combat racial inequality through nonviolence. During his acceptance speech, he reiterated the importance of nonviolent protests and called attention to poverty.

“I am still convinced that nonviolence is both the most practically sound and morally excellent way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice,” he said. “A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night.”

The son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, King’s birth name was Michael King Jr. He was born to Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King on Jan. 15, 1929.

But his father, the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, had visited Germany in 1934 and was inspired by the teachings of Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther, and began calling himself and later his son Martin Luther.

King was jailed 29 times and assaulted four times. Though his message resonated strongly among many, King was often targeted by police officers who saw his call for racial equality as a threat to American society. He frequently found himself in jail for practicing civil disobedience, including in Birmingham, Alabama, where he wrote the "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" that became a key civil rights document.

The FBI tracked King’s every move, intensifying their wiretaps and surveillance operations after the August 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream speech,” regarded by many historians as the most important speech in the 20th century.

King traveled more than 6 million miles, gave 2,500 speeches and published five books and numerous articles. From 1957, when he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference formed to assist the civil rights movement, until his death in 1968, King traveled across the nation spreading the teachings of nonviolent resistance that had been inspired by Gandhi.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, as he stood on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Had he lived, King would have turned 96 on Wednesday, Jan. 15.