the entire Super Bowl XXVII halftime show. Jackson's performance started the league's trend of signing top acts to appear during the Super Bowl to attract more viewers and interest. Background Arizona's Martin Luther King Day controversy Super Bowl XXVII was originally scheduled to be played at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, the home of the Phoenix Cardinals. In 1983, U.S. president Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday honoring African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In 1986, the first year that the holiday was observed, Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt had issued an executive order creating the holiday after the state legislature voted against it. Babbitt's successor, Evan Mecham, rescinded the order on the grounds that Babbitt did not have the authority to issue such an order and Arizona ceased to observe MLK Day for the time being. Mecham also made his displeasure for the holiday widely known, saying that King did not deserve a holiday and that black supporters of the law should have been more concerned about getting jobs. In response, Dr. King's widow Coretta Scott King and musician Stevie Wonder spearheaded a complete entertainment and convention boycott of Arizona, condemning Mecham for the rescinding of the law and accusing him of racism. Black Americans across the nation supported the boycott. Mecham was impeached and removed from office in 1988 on charges of obstruction of justice and financial misconduct. In 1989, the state legislature approved the holiday; however, Arizona's State Constitution required new holidays to be approved via initiatives to be approved by popular vote. On March 13, 1990, the NFL had its annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, and one of the items on its agenda was to determine a host city for Super Bowl XXVII. Among the cities being considered was Tempe, and Arizona civil rights activist Art Mobley was sent to the meeting to make sure that the Arizona ballot initiative was a talking point at the discussion. The vote was conducted and Tempe was awarded the game, but committee chairman and Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman warned that if the MLK Day ballot initiative went against adoption of the holiday, the NFL would not hesitate to pull the game from Arizona and move it somewhere else. The fact that the majority of NFL players were African-American was a big factor into this threat, as many of