Martin Luther King, Jr. photographed by Marion S. Trikosko, 1964. LC-DIG-ppmsc-01269 Source: Library of Congress - See more at: http://www.mlkonline.net/images.html#sthash.2SIRvHcm.dpuf

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

From the segregated American South to the Mountaintop, civil rights leader fought hatred and injustice through doctrine of nonviolence

By Wikipedia.org and LifePosts Team

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.

 

King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. - MLK, Jr.

With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia (the Albany Movement), and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.

 

Nobel Peace Prize

On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In the final years of his life, King expanded his focus to include poverty and speak against the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".

(Martin Luther King Jr. Birth Home, 501 Auburn Avenue, Atlanta, Fulton, GA. HABS GA,61-ATLA,48- Source: Library of Congress)

Assassination

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting.

King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

The above is from Wikipedia.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial
  • interests

    Figure
    Public

  • born

    Jan 15, 1929
    Atlanta, Georgia

  • died

    Apr 4, 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial
  • interests

    Figure
    Public

  • born

    Jan 15, 1929
    Atlanta, Georgia

  • died

    Apr 4, 1968