Here are twenty facts about Martin Luther King, the Baptist minister, and one of the key leaders in the American Civil Rights Movement.
- Martin Luther King was born on 15th January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia (US)
- He was originally called Michael King, after his father. However, when his father, a Baptist minister, changed his name from Michael to Martin Luther (inspired by the German theologian of the same name), Michael King Jr became Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King was a talented student. He skipped 9th grade and 12th grade, attending Morehouse College at the age of 15. He went on to graduate with a sociology degree.
- On 18th June 1953, King married Coretta Scott. They had four children, Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice King.
- In 1954, when he was just 25 years old, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
- King was heavily involved in the organisation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks. King was arrested during the protests and he started to become a national figure associated with the civil rights movement.
- In 1957, King, along with other key civil rights activists, started the Southern Christian Leadership Conference – a group dedicated to protesting non-violently to achieve civil rights reform.
- King visited Gandhi’s birthplace in India, He became absolutely convinced that a non-violent approach was the best way to achieve change in America.
- King was involved in the Albany Movement and a non-violent civil rights campaign in Brimingham, Alabama. The Birmingham campaign was much more successful and led to more public places being accessible to the city’s black community.
- He was also involved in demonstrations in St Augustine, Florida and Selma, Alabama.
- King was involved in the March on Washington in 1963, and it front of the Lincoln Memorial that he delivered his famous, seventeen minute, ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. It would appear that the portion of the speech in which he talks about his dream, wasn’t in his original notes and wasn’t scripted.
- King was against the Vietnam War and spoke out against it in his ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech.
- Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on 4th April 1968. He was shot while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. James Earl Ray was charged with his murder. Many people believe that James Earl Ray wasn’t acting alone and that there was a conspiracy to have King assassinated. King was just 39.
- The third Monday of January each year is a federal holiday in the United States to honour Martin Luther King. It’s know as Martin Luther King Jr Day and has been observed by all fifty states since 2000.
- More than 700 US cities have streets named after Martin Luther King.
- King was arrested 29 times during his civil rights campaigns.
- The author of several books, King also won a Grammy award in 1971 for the spoken-word recording Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.
- King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was thirty-five years of age and, at the time, he was the youngest ever recipient of the award. He donated the prize money ($400,000) to the Civil Rights movement.
- He was the first African-American person to be named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.
- King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, died in 2006. She was seventy-eight years old.
