Martin Luther King Jr.

Who is Martin Luther King Jr.?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and became a Baptist minister and the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement. Deeply influenced by Christian teaching and by Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance, he helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1956 after Rosa Parks's arrest and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1963 he delivered his celebrated 'I Have a Dream' speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, calling for racial equality and an end to segregation. His campaigns contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968. A U.S. federal holiday honors him each January.

Sources: Martin Luther King Jr., 'I Have a Dream' speech (1963) · Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 (1988) · Martin Luther King Jr., 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' (1963)