In 1983, President Reagan had signed into law a national holiday honouring Martin Luther King Jr, the pioneering black civil rights leader shot dead in 1968, on the third Monday of January.

It took several years before those in Arizona could enjoy it.

The Republican state legislature blocked several attempts to make it a paid state holiday.

It was only in 1986 that Governor Bruce Babbitt – a Democrat – forced Martin Luther King Jr Day on to Arizona calendars by executive order.

Babbitt made the announcement from the pulpit at the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix, where Dr Warren Stewart is the senior pastor.

“In his speech here, he said ‘you’re going to have to fight for it’, which was really prophetic,” Dr Stewart told BBC Sport.

While running for election as Babbitt’s successor, Evan Mecham made a campaign promise to rescind Babbitt’s order. Days after taking office in 1987, he kept it.

“King doesn’t deserve a holiday,” said Mecham. “You folks don’t need another holiday. What you folks need are jobs.”

Supporters of the outspoken Republican insist he believed that economics was the key to improving the lives of black people in his state, but his comments on social issues made him a polarising figure.

Dr Stewart knew where he stood.

The pastor, who moved to Arizona from Kansas in 1977 via New York, formed a multi-faith, multi-race coalition to try to get Mecham or the state to pass a holiday.

“We were angry, he disrespected the legacy of Martin Luther King,” said Dr Stewart.

Dr Boyd added: “It’s one thing to oppose it; it’s another to repeal it once it’s already been put in place.

“There was no shame in Evan Mecham’s game. He was comfortable openly flaunting his ignorance and bigotry.

“In a lot of ways he sounded like a holdover from the type of characters you would have encountered in the 1960s – unapologetically bigoted, especially racist, and kind of a relic.”

Mecham was removed from office in 1988 after being convicted in an impeachment trial of obstruction of justice and misuse of government funds.

But his abrupt departure from power did not ensure the immediate return of the Martin Luther King holiday.

Governor Mofford – Mecham’s successor – supported its reinstatement. The Republican state legislature still opposed it. Deadlock.

In November 1990, Dr Stewart’s coalition collected enough signatures to force a tiebreaker – a vote by the people of Arizona themselves.

With Phoenix having now been awarded the Super Bowl, they went to the polls knowing the NFL was watching.