Martin Luther King Jr.

1929 Atlanta, Georgia - 1968 Memphis, Tennessee

BiographyReverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born with the first name Michael before changing it later in his life. King's father and grandfather were both pastors at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church, and King was co-pastor there as well from 1960 until his death. King graduated highschool at the age of 15 and went on to receive education degrees all the way up to a PhD. and Bachelors of Divinity. He met and married Coretta Scott in Boston, they had two sons and two daughters. In 1954 King became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist church and began his work within the civil rights movement. At this time he was already on the executive committee of the NAACP and in 1955 organized the bus boycotts. After this boycott King became one of the leaders of the civil rights movement, however he experienced personal attacks, bombings, and arrests for the boycott. These attacks would continue throughout his life. In 1957 he was elected as the president of the SCLC. The most famous moments from his long activist career were the: massive protests in Birmingham, Alabama, the 1963 March on Washington with King's "I Have a Dream" speech, the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, and the numerous laws such as the 1964 Voting Rights Act that came from the civil rights movement. King's leadership was characterized by nonviolence and he won many honorary degrees and awards for his activism including the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. King was the youngest man to receive the prize at the age of 35. King was assassinated in 1968 in a hotel in Memphis Tennessee.

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