short biography of martin luther king jr

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience and security.

Enhanced Page Navigation

• Martin Luther King Jr. - Biography

Magical realism

Five spellbinding works by nobel prize laureates.

“It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality,” said literature laureate and master of magical realism, Gabriel García Márquez .

His works epitomise magical realism, a genre in which the framework narrative is set in the real world, but supernatural and dreamlike elements are part of the portrayal. Like fairy tales, magical realism novels blur the lines between fantasy and reality and while they vary enormously, they tend to contain a set of similar elements.

Magical realism novels are usually set in a realistic environment. Even if the place, like García Márquez’s village of Macondo is fictitious, they contain features familiar to our everyday lives. However, these novels also include unexplained magical, supernatural or dreamlike elements, such as ghosts or the ability to fly, presented as ordinary occurrences that are freely accepted by characters.

Novels in this genre often tell the stories of people on the fringes of society. Their authors use magical realism to critique society, politics or wealth, for example, shining a supernatural light on impoverished communities or the horrors of slavery.

Authors such as Franz Kafka, whose novel The Metamorphosis bears the hallmarks of magical realism texts, wrote books before the genre was recognised. However, magical realism is most commonly associated with a group of Latin American authors including  García Márquez, who penned works around 60 years ago and marked a boon in popularity for the genre.

Their version of magical realism and a clear definition of the genre evaporates when borders are crossed and blurred, and myths, beliefs and different realities mingle. Writers from all over the world have produced incredible books that have enriched the genre.

Here are five novels by Nobel Prize laureates, which most critics believe showcase magical realism. Whether the books fit neatly within the genre’s varied bookcase or not, it is generally agreed that they are truly magical works of literature.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1982 was awarded to one of the masters of magical realism, Gabriel García Márquez “for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts.”

García Márquez’s 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude , weaves together the magical and the mundane in Macondo, a solitary city of mirrors that reflects the world around it. Macondo is home to multiple generations of the Buendía family who encounter magic carpets and are haunted by ghosts as they navigate periodic misfortunes, some of which are fantastic such as the birth of a child with a pig’s tail, while others are more rooted in reality, such as the effects of a rigged election.

Explaining the presence of such fantastical features in this novel and other stories, García Márquez said that in Mexico, “surrealism runs through the streets. Surrealism comes from the reality of Latin America,” yet unlike surrealist poets and painters, his work is based on anecdotes, rather than being symbolic. His writing makes the impossible not only possible but strangely normal in the city of mirrors of his own invention. The microcosmos of Macondo reflects a continent and its human riches and poverty, with García Márquez strongly committed, politically, on the side of the poor and the weak against domestic oppression and foreign economic exploitation.

Literature laureate Jose Saramago uses allegories and fanciful elements to critique society. In his novel Blindness , the population is stricken with an epidemic of blindness that quickly leads to societal collapse.

A characteristic of Saramago’s style is the blending of dialogue and narration, with sparse punctuation and long sentences that can extend for several pages. He sometimes transforms ordinary people, like his grandparents, into literary characters. He said in his Nobel Prize lecture , “this was, probably, my way of not forgetting them, drawing and redrawing their faces with the pencil that ever changes memory, colouring and illuminating the monotony of a dull and horizonless daily routine as if creating, over the unstable map of memory, the supernatural unreality of the country where one has decided to spend one’s life.”

Saramago received the Nobel Prize in Literature 1998 for his “parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony” that the committee said enable readers to “apprehend an elusory reality,” and used his Nobel Prize lecture to talk about the power of characters.

The Books of Jacob

“I write fiction, but it is never pure fabrication. When I write, I have to feel everything inside myself,” said Olga Tokarczuk , who was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Known for the mythical tone of her writing and interweaving stories across time to create universal and epic stories, Tokarczuk believes “the world is made of words.” She constructs her novels in a tension between cultural opposites: nature versus culture, reason versus madness, male versus female, home versus alienation, which enables her novels to arguably be considered part of the magical realism genre.

Her historical novel Ksiegi Jakubowe (The Books of Jacob), is set in 1752 in the Podolian borderlands of what was southwest Poland where a family is gathering for a wedding. While criss-crossing Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire over 40 years, the novel portrays the 18th-century mystic and sect leader Jacob Frank whose charisma is superhuman. The character can read minds and bend nature to his will, while his prophetess cousin, Hayah can cast powerful spells to cheat death. Supernatural details aside, the work gives readers a remarkably rich panorama of an almost neglected chapter in European history.

In her Nobel Prize lecture , Tokarczuk spoke about the importance of narration and the author. “How we think about the world and – perhaps even more importantly – how we narrate it have a massive significance. […] A thing that happens and is not told ceases to exist and perishes. This is a fact well known to not only historians, but also (and perhaps above all) to every stripe of politician and tyrant. He who has and weaves the story is in charge.”

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Just as Tokarczuk draws upon the hidden history of her home country, Nobel Prize laureate Mo Yan ’s writing often uses older Chinese literature and popular oral traditions as a starting point, combining these with contemporary social issues and his childhood memories. His narrative style bears the hallmarks of magical realism, which has had made his own to create “hallucinatory realism” which merges history and the contemporary.

Tormented by insomnia, he wrote Shengsi pilao (Life and Death are Wearing Me Out) in just 43 days. Drawing upon the Buddhist concept of the “wheel of life” to throw light on half a century of enormous changes in Chinese society and a series of tragedies associated with the land, the novel is narrated from the perspective of animals.

Despite the social criticism contained in his books, in China Yan is viewed as one of the country’s foremost authors. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2012.

Toni Morrison is another author whose works including Beloved bear hallmarks of magical realism, although Morrisson herself initially disliked her novels being included in the genre. She explained that her use of enchantment comes from her own experience and that of the black people she knew. “It formed a kind of cosmology that was perceptive as well as enchanting, and so it seemed impossible for me to write about black people and eliminate that simply because it was “unbelievable”, she said.

Set in the period following the American Civil War with its commonplace mysticism and dream-like imagery, Beloved tells the story of a formerly enslaved woman, whose home is haunted by a spiteful spirit thought to be the ghost of her eldest daughter. The novel explores slavery and other themes, weaving together places and times in the network of motifs. The combination of realistic notation and folklore paradoxically intensifies the credibility of the story. There is enormous power in the depiction of the protagonist Sethe’s action to liberate her child from threat of enslavement, and the consequences of this action for Sethe’s own life.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993 was awarded to Toni Morrison “who in novels characterised by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

How many of these books have you read? Which is the most magical to you?

First published 11 July 2024

Nobel Prizes and laureates

Nobel prizes 2023.

Explore prizes and laureates

Biography Online

Martin Luther King Biography

Early Life of Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta on 15 January 1929. Both his father and grandfather were pastors in an African-American Baptist church. M. Luther King attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, (segregated schooling) and then went to study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and Boston University. During his time at University Martin Luther King became aware of the vast inequality and injustice faced by black Americans; in particular, he was influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent protest. The philosophy of Gandhi tied in with the teachings of his Baptist faith. At the age of 24, King married Coretta Scott , a beautiful and talented young woman. After getting married, King became a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

It began in innocuous circumstances on 5 December 1955. Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist, refused to give up her seat – she was sitting in a white-only area. This broke the strict segregation of coloured and white people on the Montgomery buses. The bus company refused to back down and so Martin Luther King helped to organise a strike where coloured people refused to use any of the city buses. The boycott lasted for several months, the issue was then brought to the Supreme Court who declared the segregation was unconstitutional.

Civil Rights Movement.

After the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, King and other ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This proved to be a nucleus for the growing civil rights movement. Later there would be arguments about the best approach to take. In particular, the 1960s saw the rise of the Black power movement, epitomised by Malcolm X and other black nationalist groups. However, King always remained committed to the ideals of non-violent struggle.

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X briefly meet in 1964 before going to listen to a Senate debate about civil rights in Washington. (image Wikicommons )

Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King was an inspirational and influential speaker; he had the capacity to move and uplift his audiences. In particular, he could offer a vision of hope. He captured the injustice of the time but also felt that this injustice was like a passing cloud. King frequently made references to God, the Bible and his Christian Faith.

“And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?” And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.” – Martin Luther King

His speeches were largely free of revenge, instead focusing on the need to move forward. He was named as Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963, it followed his famous and iconic “ I Have a Dream Speech ” – delivered in Washington during a civil rights march.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood”

– Martin Luther King

The following year, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work towards social justice. King announced he would turn over the prize money $54,123 to the civil rights movement. With the prestige of the Nobel Prize, King was increasingly consulted by politicians such as Lyndon Johnson .

However, King’s opposition to the Vietnam War did not endear him to the Johnson administration; King also began receiving increased scrutiny from the authorities, such as the FBI.

On April 4th, 1968, King was assassinated. It was one day after he had delivered his final speech “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”

In his honour, America has instigated a national Martin Luther King Day. He remains symbolic of America’s fight for justice and racial equality.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Martin Luther King Biography” , Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , 11th Feb 2008. Last updated 2 March 2018.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King at Amazon.com

Strength to Love – The Speeches of Martin Luther King at Amazon

Related pages

• Martin Luther King Quotes
• Martin Luther King Speeches
• Martin Luther Biography

Famous Americans – Great Americans from the Founding Fathers to modern civil rights activists. Including presidents, authors, musicians, entrepreneurs and businessmen.

18 Comments

just because people are colored they should not be treated differently they are also gods creation who he love more than anything

• February 27, 2019 5:11 PM
• By brieanna

Both of martin luther king jr father and grandfather were pastors in an african american baptist church.

• January 15, 2019 6:55 PM

colored does not have a u

• September 28, 2018 6:38 PM

It does in British-English

• October 07, 2018 7:53 AM

it is very use for projects

• August 28, 2018 1:55 PM

Thank you for all of your help this helped me build and essay.

• May 01, 2018 3:55 PM

this also really helped me with a very important project

• April 12, 2018 4:40 PM

This helped me with a project of mine.

• April 06, 2018 12:20 AM
• By Emiliano Carrera

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center

Martin Luther King, Jr. summary

Learn about the life of martin luther king, jr., and his role in the civil rights movement in the united states.

Martin Luther King, Jr. , (born Jan. 15, 1929, Atlanta, Ga., U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tenn.), U.S. civil rights leader.

The son and grandson of Baptist preachers, King became an adherent of nonviolence while in college. Ordained a Baptist minister himself in 1954, he became pastor of a church in Montgomery, Ala.; the following year he received a doctorate from Boston University. He was selected to head the Montgomery Improvement Association, whose boycott efforts eventually ended the city’s policies of racial segregation on public transportation.

In 1957 King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and began lecturing nationwide, urging active nonviolence to achieve civil rights for Black Americans. In 1960 he returned to Atlanta to become copastor with his father of Ebenezer Baptist Church. He was arrested and jailed for protesting segregation at a lunch counter; the case drew national attention, and presidential candidate John F. Kennedy interceded to obtain his release.

In 1963 King helped organize the March on Washington, an assembly of more than 200,000 people at which he made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The march influenced the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and King was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace.

In 1965 he was criticized from within the civil rights movement for yielding to state troopers at a march in Selma, Ala., and for failing in the effort to change Chicago’s housing segregation policies. Thereafter he broadened his advocacy, addressing the plight of the poor of all races and opposing the Vietnam War. In 1968 he went to Memphis, Tenn., to support a strike by sanitation workers; there on April 4, he was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

A U.S. national holiday is celebrated in King’s honour on the third Monday in January.

About Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. king jr..

Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950s and ‘ 60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. While others were advocating for freedom by “any means necessary,” including violence, Martin Luther King, Jr. used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly-impossible goals. He went on to lead similar campaigns against poverty and international conflict, always maintaining fidelity to his principles that men and women everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal members of the human family.

Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Nobel Peace Prize lecture and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” are among the most revered orations and writings in the English language. His accomplishments are now taught to American children of all races, and his teachings are studied by scholars and students worldwide. He is the only non-president to have a national holiday dedicated in his honor and is the only non-president memorialized on the Great Mall in the nation’s capital. He is memorialized in hundreds of statues, parks, streets, squares, churches and other public facilities around the world as a leader whose teachings are increasingly-relevant to the progress of humankind.

Some of Dr. King’s Most Important Achievements

In 1957 , Dr. King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization designed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. He would serve as head of the SCLC until his assassination in 1968, a period during which he would emerge as the most important social leader of the modern American civil rights movement.

In 1963 , he led a coalition of numerous civil rights groups in a nonviolent campaign aimed at Birmingham, Alabama, which at the time was described as the “most segregated city in America.” The subsequent brutality of the city’s police, illustrated most vividly by television images of young blacks being assaulted by dogs and water hoses, led to a national outrage resulting in a push for unprecedented civil rights legislation. It was during this campaign that Dr. King drafted the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the manifesto of Dr. King’s philosophy and tactics, which is today required-reading in universities worldwide.

Later in 1963 , Dr. King was one of the driving forces behind the March for Jobs and Freedom, more commonly known as the “March on Washington,” which drew over a quarter-million people to the national mall. It was at this march that Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, which cemented his status as a social change leader and helped inspire the nation to act on civil rights. Dr. King was later named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year.”

Also in 1964 , partly due to the March on Washington, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act, essentially eliminating legalized racial segregation in the United States. The legislation made it illegal to discriminate against blacks or other minorities in hiring, public accommodations, education or transportation, areas which at the time were still very segregated in many places.

The next year, 1965 , Congress went on to pass the Voting Rights Act, which was an equally-important set of laws that eliminated the remaining barriers to voting for African-Americans, who in some locales had been almost completely disenfranchised. This legislation resulted directly from the Selma to Montgomery, AL March for Voting Rights lead by Dr. King.

Between 1965 and 1968, Dr. King shifted his focus toward economic justice – which he highlighted by leading several campaigns in Chicago, Illinois – and international peace – which he championed by speaking out strongly against the Vietnam War. His work in these years culminated in the “Poor Peoples Campaign,” which was a broad effort to assemble a multiracial coalition of impoverished Americans who would advocate for economic change.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s less than thirteen years of nonviolent leadership ended abruptly and tragically on April 4th, 1968 , when he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King’s body was returned to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, where his funeral ceremony was attended by high-level leaders of all races and political stripes.

• For more information regarding the Transcription of the King Family Press Conference on the MLK Assassination Trial Verdict December 9, 1999, Atlanta, GA. Click Here
• For more information regarding the Civil Case: King family versus Jowers. Click here .
• Later in 1968, Dr. King’s wife, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, officially founded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which she dedicated to being a “living memorial” aimed at continuing Dr. King’s work on important social ills around the world.

We envision the Beloved Community where injustice ceases and love prevails.

Contact Info

449 Auburn Avenue, NE Atlanta, Georgia 30312

[email protected]

404.526.8900

Quick Links

• History Timeline
• King Holiday
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions

Latest News

• Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Coretta Scott King’s 100th Birthdays
• Spotlight on Women’s History Month with The King Center

Stay Connected

The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Facts, information and articles about dr. martin luther king jr., a civil rights leader prominent figure in black history, dr. martin luther king jr. facts.

January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia

April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee

Coretta Scott King

Accomplishments

Leader of African American Civil Rights Leader Nobel Peace Prize (1964) Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977) Congressional Gold Medal (2004)

Famous letters and speeches

“I have a dream” Speech

Letter from Birmingham jail

Letter to Coretta

Our God is Marching On (How Long? Not Long)

Martin Luther King Jr. Articles

Explore articles from the HISTORYNET archives about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

» See all Martin Luther King Jr. Articles

Martin Luther King Jr. became the predominant leader in the civil rights movement to end racial segregation and discrimination in America during the 1950s and 1960s, and was a leading spokesperson for nonviolent methods of achieving social change. His eloquence as a speaker and his personal charism—combined with a deeply rooted determination to establish equality among all races despite personal risk—won him a worldwide following. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was selected by Time magazine as its Man of the Year. His “I Have a Dream” speech, which is now considered to be among the great speeches of American history, is frequently quoted. His success in galvanizing the drive for civil rights, however, made him the target of conservative segregationists who believed firmly in the superiority of the white race and feared social change. He was arrested over 20 times and had his home was bombed. Ultimately, he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of a motel where he was staying in Memphis. A monument to Dr. King was unveiled in the national capital in 2012.

Early Life of Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr., was born Michael Luther King Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. His father, in a 1957 interview, said that both he and his son were supposed to be named for the leader of the Protestant Reformation but misunderstandings led to Michael being the name on birth records. The boy became the third member of his family to serve as pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father. His training and experience as a minister undoubtedly contributed to his renowned oratorical style and cadence.

He also followed the educational path taken by his father and grandfather: he got his education in Georgia’s segregated public schools (from which he graduated at age 15). And he received a B.A. degree from Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a traditionally black college. He then went on to study theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, an integrated school where he was elected president of his senior class although it was comprised primarily of white students. In 1955, he received an advanced degree from Boston College in Massachusetts; he had completed the residence for his doctorate two years earlier. (In 1991, a Boston University investigatory committee determined he had plagiarized portions of his doctoral dissertation; plagiarism was also discovered in his word at Crozer. However, the committee did not recommend his degree be revoked. Evidence of plagiarism had been discovered by Boston University archivists in the 1980s.)

While in Boston, he met and married Coretta Scott, who would be his lifetime partner in both marriage and his campaign for civil rights. In 1954, the couple moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where King had been hired as the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

He was already active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, America’s leading African-American organization. At the time of his move to Montgomery, he was a member of its executive committee, and in December 1955, he led a 382-day boycott of Montgomery’s segregated public bus system. Negroes, the term then used for those of African descent, were relegated to the back of the bus and forced to give up their seats if a white person wanted to sit. Since many blacks lived in poverty or near-poverty, few could afford automobiles, and public busses were essential to them for traveling to and from work and elsewhere. During the boycott, King became a target for segregationists. Personal abuse, arrest, and the bombing of his home made clear the risks he would be taking if he continued to work with the movement for civil rights.

In 1957, that movement spawned a new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to focus on achieving civil rights. King was elected president. By dropping reference to Negroes or colored people in its title and instead using the term “Christian Leadership” the organization was declaring its goals were not just those of one race but should be those of all Christian people. King strongly influenced the ideals of the organization.

During the next 11 years, he would speak over 2,500 times at public events, traveling over six million miles. He also wrote articles and five books to spread the message farther. In 1963, he was a leader in the massive civil rights protests at Birmingham, Alabama, that drew the attention of all America—indeed, of the entire world—to the discrimination African Americans faced and their demands for change. Arrested during the protests, he penned “ Letter from a Birmingham Jail , ” which became a manifesto for the civil rights revolution and placed King among America’s renowned essayists such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Influence of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

His tactics for achieving social change were drawn from those of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (known as Mahatma, “great soul”), who had used nonviolent civil disobedience to bring about change in his native India (as he had done with some success previously to win concessions for Indian immigrants living in South Africa’s apartheid system). Gandhi’s methods included boycotts of British goods and institutions. (Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi was repeatedly arrested and ultimately was assassinated by a fanatic.)

Although King stressed nonviolence, even when confronted by violence, those who opposed change did not observe such niceties. Protestors were beaten, sprayed with high-pressure water hoses, tear-gassed, and attacked by police dogs; bombings at black churches, homes, and other locations took a number of lives; some—both black and white—who agitated for civil rights such as the right to vote were murdered, but the movement pressed on.

King was the most prominent leader in the drive to register black voters in Atlanta and the march on Washington, D.C., that drew a quarter-million participants. His message had moved beyond African Americans and was drawing supporters from all segments of society, many of them appalled by the violence they saw being conducted against peaceful protestors night after night on television news.

Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

During the rally in the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963, Dr. King delivered his most famous speech, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, from the steps of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. Portions of that speech are often quoted, including, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’ … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The speech called not only for Negro rights, but for the rights of all people and, moreover, for friendship and unity among all Americans, with phrases such as, “I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

Beyond the repeated phrase, “I have a dream,” perhaps the best-known and most-often quoted portion of the speech comes from its concluding paragraph, which states:

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

It has been alleged that King plagiarized his famous speech from one given by Archibald Carey, a black pastor, in a 1952 speech to the Republican National Convention, just as it was found he had plagiarized others’ works in his collegiate papers. While there are similarities in the endings of the two speeches, those similarities are insufficient to be considered outright plagiarism and are based largely on the fact that both men quoted the opening verse of “America the Beautiful” as a lead-in to their closing remarks.

To read a transcript of the entire “I Have A Dream” speech, click here .

Martin Luther King’s Nobel Peace Prize

His oratory and impassioned drive, not just for equality under the law, but for true understanding and acceptance of all races and creeds by all races and creeds, led Time magazine to select Martin Luther King, Jr., as its Man of the Year for 1963 . The following year, the Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm, Sweden, awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize . Then 35, he is the youngest man ever to have received it. The prize included an award of over $54,000, which he promised donate to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

As the Vietnam War escalated, King spoke out against America’s involvement in the conflict. His antiwar position was an outgrowth of his belief in nonviolence, but to those who opposed King it intensified their belief he was pro-Communist and anti-American.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated

In the spring of 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, where the majority of the city’s black sanitation workers had been striking since February 12 for increased job safety measures, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. The mayor, Henry Loeb, staunchly opposed all these measures. King was solicited to come to Memphis to lead a planned march and work stoppage on March 28.

That protest march turned violent when sign-carrying students at the end of the parade began breaking windows of businesses, which led to looting. One looter was killed and about 60 people were injured. The city of Memphis lodged a formal complaint in the U.S. District Court against King and several other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He and those leaders negotiated with the factions among the workers and their supporters who had initiated the march.

Assured that they would observe the creed of nonviolent civil disobedience, King agreed to return to Memphis for the rescheduled march on April 5. The district court had issued a restraining order, however, representatives of the SCLC met with the judge on April 4 and worked out a broad agreement that would permit the protest march to be held on April 8. Details were to be worked out on April 5.

On the evening of April 4, one of the SCLC representatives, Andrew Young (who would later serve as President Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations and would be elected mayor of Atlanta), came to King’s room at the Lorraine Motel and informed him of what had been worked out with the judge. They prepared to go out to dinner, along with their colleagues. When King stepped onto the balcony in front of his room, he was shot and killed. He was just 39 years old.

In direct contrast to the nonviolence he had preached, riots broke out following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death. In Chicago alone, nearly a dozen people died, 350 were arrested for looting, and 162 buildings were destroyed by arson.

James Earl Ray

The FBI quickly identified James Earl Ray as their primary suspect in the killing; his fingerprints had been found on the rifle and scope believed to have been used in the assassination, as well as on a pair of binoculars. The fatal shot had been fired from the bathroom window of a nearby rooming house.

Ray, a high-school dropout who had escaped from a Missouri prison in 1967, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London, England, on June 8. In March 1969, he pled guilty and received a 99-year prison sentence. He escaped in 1977 but was recaptured after three days.

Almost immediately after his conviction, Ray tried to recant his confession, saying he had rented the room at the boardinghouse and bought the gun, but he had turned the weapon over to a man he called “Raoul.” In 1992, Ray published a book, Who killed Martin Luther King, Jr? The True Story by the Alleged Assassin , giving his version of events, which suggested there had been a conspiracy and a government coverup. The case was not reopened, although a special congressional committee reported in 1978 that there was a “likelihood” Ray had not acted alone.

In March 1997, he met with one of King’s sons, Dexter, and told him, “I had nothing to do with shooting your father.” King’s widow and heirs began expressing their belief that Ray was innocent and the assassination was part of a conspiracy.

Ray never provided sufficient details to support his contention of a conspiracy and cover-up, but many besides the Kings doubt he acted alone. Among the conspiracy theories is one that claims FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who intensely disliked and distrusted King and had kept him under surveillance since 1962, was involved in the assassination—but like other theories about who killed Martin Luther King, Jr., this is mere conjecture.

Ray was never released from prison. He died of liver failure on April 22, 1998, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy

By the time of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, the civil rights movement was evolving; in some ways, it seemed to be leaving him behind. New black power activists did not accept his philosophy of nonviolence as a way to achieve their goals. The FBI was breaking the power of the Ku Klux Klan, which had stood squarely in the way of racial equality. After successfully campaigning for Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of Cleveland, King was not invited to the victory celebration. The next civil rights challenges, such as fighting poverty, were more abstract compared with the clarity of issues like discrimination in hiring and the use of public amenities. These new concerns would likely have proven more difficult for him to achieve the same levels of success as he had in his previous campaigns for equality and justice. On the last Saturday of his life, he mused about quitting his full-time role in the movement, though he seemed to talk himself out of that, according to one of his fellow activists, Jesse Jackson.

Yet, the lasting legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as a vibrant catalyst for social change cannot be denied. Among the prominent legacies of his ability to organize and energize the movement for equality are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . His birthday has become a national holiday, when government offices and many private businesses close to honor his memory. A portion of the Lorraine Motel, including two persevered rooms and the balcony on which he was assassinated, are part of the National Civil Rights Museum . King’s birthplace is now part of the National Park System.

His eloquent words live on, inspiring others who see injustices and seek to change them. He had a dream, and though it is still a long way from being fully realized, the America of his racially segregated youth and that of today’s integrated society—in which a black man was elected president of the United States having served two full terms from 2008-2016—are as far apart and different from each other as the planet Mars is from Neptune. It is impossible to imagine such sweeping change would occur as quickly as it did without a leader like Martin Luther King Jr. driving it forward.

Articles Featuring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From HistoryNet Magazines

How Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter From Birmingham City Jail’ Inspired the World

The First Assassination Attempt on Martin Luther King Jr.

5 Ways to Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day

• HISTORY & CULTURE

Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?

A civil rights legend, Dr. King fought for justice through peaceful protest—and delivered some of the 20th century's most iconic speeches.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is a civil rights legend. In the mid-1950s, King led the movement to end segregation and counter prejudice in the United States through the means of peaceful protest. His speeches—some of the most iconic of the 20th century—had a profound effect on the national consciousness. Through his leadership, the civil rights movement opened doors to education and employment that had long been closed to Black America.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King for his commitment to equal rights and justice for all. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it’s called Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In January 2000, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all 50 U.S. states . Here’s what you need to know about King’s extraordinary life.

Though King's name is known worldwide, many may not realize that he was born Michael King, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. His father , Michael King, was a pastor at the   Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. During a trip to Germany, King, Sr. was so impressed by the history of Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther that he changed not only his own name, but also five-year-old Michael’s.

( Read about Martin Luther King, Jr. with your kids .)

His brilliance was noted early, as he was accepted into Morehouse College , a historically Black school in Atlanta, at age 15. By the summer before his last year of college, King knew he was destined to continue the family profession of pastoral work and decided to enter the ministry. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Morehouse at age 19, and then enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, graduating with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. He earned a doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University in 1955.

King married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama. They became the parents of four children : Yolanda King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (b. 1957), Dexter Scott King (b. 1961), and Bernice King (b. 1963).

Becoming a civil rights leader

In 1954, when he was 25 years old, Dr. King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In March 1955, Claudette Colvin—a 15-year-old Black schoolgirl in Montgomery—refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, which was a violation of Jim Crow laws, local laws in the southern United States that enforced racial segregation.  

( Jim Crow laws created 'slavery by another name. ')

King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case. The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) briefly considered using Colvin's case to challenge the segregation laws, but decided that because she was so young—and had become pregnant—her case would attract too much negative attention.

Nine months later on December 1, 1955, a similar incident occurred when a seamstress named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. The two incidents led to the Montgomery bus boycott , which was urged and planned by the President of the Alabama Chapter of the NAACP, E.D. Nixon, and led by King. The boycott lasted for 385 days.

King’s prominent and outspoken role in the boycott led to numerous threats against his life, and his house was firebombed. He was arrested during the campaign, which concluded with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle   ( in which Colvin was a plaintiff ) that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses. King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.

Fighting for change through nonviolent protest

From the early days of the Montgomery boycott, King had often referred to India’s Mahatma Gandhi as “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”

You May Also Like

The birth of the Holy Roman Empire—and the unlikely king who ruled it

How Martin Luther King, Jr.’s multifaceted view on human rights still inspires today

How Martin Luther Started a Religious Revolution

In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to harness the organizing power of Black churches to conduct nonviolent protests to ultimately achieve civil rights reform. The group was part of what was called “The Big Five” of civil rights organizations, which included the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Congress on Racial Equality.

Through his connections with the Big Five civil rights groups, overwhelming support from Black America and with the support of prominent individual well-wishers, King’s skill and effectiveness grew exponentially. He organized and led marches for Blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights.

( How the U.S. Voting Rights Act was won—and why it's under fire today .)

On August 28, 1963, The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom became the pinnacle of King’s national and international influence. Before a crowd of 250,000 people, he delivered the legendary “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That speech, along with many others that King delivered, has had a lasting influence on world rhetoric .

In 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights and social justice activism. Most of the rights King organized protests around were successfully enacted into law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act .

Economic justice and the Vietnam War

King’s opposition to the Vietnam War became a prominent part of his public persona. On April 4, 1967—exactly one year before his death—he gave a speech called “Beyond Vietnam” in New York City, in which he proposed a stop to the bombing of Vietnam. King also suggested that the United States declare a truce with the aim of achieving peace talks, and that the U.S. set a date for withdrawal.

( King's advocacy for human rights around the world still inspires today .)

Ultimately, King was driven to focus on social and economic justice in the United States. He had traveled to Memphis, Tennessee in early April 1968 to help organize a sanitation workers’ strike, and on the night of April 3, he delivered the legendary “I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech , in which he compared the strike to the long struggle for human freedom and the battle for economic justice, using the New Testament's Parable of the Good Samaritan to stress the need for people to get involved.

Assassination

But King would not live to realize that vision. The next day, April 4, 1968, King was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by James Earl Ray , a small-time criminal who had escaped the year before from a maximum-security prison. Ray was charged and convicted of the murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison on March 10, 1969. But Ray changed his mind after three days in jail, claiming he was not guilty and had been framed. He spent the rest of his life fighting unsuccessfully for a trial, despite the ultimate support of some members of the King family and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

The turmoil that flowed from King’s assassination led many Black Americans to wonder if that dream he had spoken of so eloquently had died with him. But, today, young people around the world still learn about King's life and legacy—and his vision of equality and justice for all continue to resonate.

Related Topics

• CIVIL RIGHTS

Herod I: The controversial king who transformed the Holy Land

The perfect storm that led to the Jonestown massacre

What was the Stonewall uprising?

Harriet Tubman, the spy: uncovering her secret Civil War missions

MLK and Malcolm X only met once. Here’s the story behind an iconic image.

• Environment
• Paid Content

History & Culture

• History & Culture
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Civil Rights Leader

• People & Events
• Fads & Fashions
• Early 20th Century
• American History
• African American History
• African History
• Ancient History and Culture
• Asian History
• European History
• Latin American History
• Medieval & Renaissance History
• Military History
• Women's History

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929–April 4, 1968) was the charismatic leader of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He directed the year-long Montgomery bus boycott , which attracted scrutiny by a wary, divided nation, but his leadership and the resulting Supreme Court ruling against bus segregation brought him fame. He formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to coordinate nonviolent protests and delivered over 2,500 speeches addressing racial injustice, but his life was cut short by an assassin in 1968.

Fast Facts: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

• Known For : Leader of the U.S. civil rights movement
• Also Known As : Michael Lewis King Jr.
• Born : Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia
• Parents : Michael King Sr., Alberta Williams
• Died : April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee
• Education : Crozer Theological Seminary, Boston University
• Published Works : Stride Toward Freedom, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
• Awards and Honors : Nobel Peace Prize
• Spouse : Coretta Scott
• Children : Yolanda, Martin, Dexter, Bernice
• Notable Quote : "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Michael King Sr., pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Alberta Williams, a Spelman College graduate and former schoolteacher. King lived with his parents, a sister, and a brother in the Victorian home of his maternal grandparents.

Martin—named Michael Lewis until he was 5—thrived in a middle-class family, going to school, playing football and baseball, delivering newspapers, and doing odd jobs. Their father was involved in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and had led a successful campaign for equal wages for White and Black Atlanta teachers. When Martin's grandfather died in 1931, Martin's father became pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, serving for 44 years.

After attending the World Baptist Alliance in Berlin in 1934, King Sr. changed his and his son's name from Michael King to Martin Luther King, after the Protestant reformist. King Sr. was inspired by Martin Luther's courage of confronting institutionalized evil.

Wikimedia Commons

King entered Morehouse College at 15. King's wavering attitude toward his future career in the clergy led him to engage in activities typically not condoned by the church. He played pool, drank beer, and received his lowest academic marks in his first two years at Morehouse.

King studied sociology and considered law school while reading voraciously. He was fascinated by Henry David Thoreau 's essay " On Civil Disobedience" and its idea of noncooperation with an unjust system. King decided that social activism was his calling and religion the best means to that end. He was ordained as a minister in February 1948, the year he graduated with a sociology degree at age 19.

In September 1948, King entered the predominately White Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania. He read works by great theologians but despaired that no philosophy was complete within itself. Then, hearing a lecture about Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi , he became captivated by his concept of nonviolent resistance. King concluded that the Christian doctrine of love, operating through nonviolence, could be a powerful weapon for his people.

In 1951, King graduated at the top of his class with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. In September of that year, he enrolled in doctoral studies at Boston University's School of Theology.

While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott , a singer studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music. While King knew early on that she had all the qualities he desired in a wife, initially, Coretta was hesitant about dating a minister. The couple married on June 18, 1953. King's father performed the ceremony at Coretta's family home in Marion, Alabama. They returned to Boston to complete their degrees.

King was invited to preach in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, which had a history of civil rights activism. The pastor was retiring. King captivated the congregation and became the pastor in April 1954. Coretta, meanwhile, was committed to her husband's work but was conflicted about her role. King wanted her to stay home with their four children: Yolanda, Martin, Dexter, and Bernice. Explaining her feelings on the issue, Coretta told Jeanne Theoharis in a 2018 article in The Guardian , a British newspaper:

“I once told Martin that although I loved being his wife and a mother, if that was all I did I would have gone crazy. I felt a calling on my life from an early age. I knew I had something to contribute to the world.”

And to a degree, King seemed to agree with his wife, saying he fully considered her a partner in the struggle for civil rights as well as on all other issues with which he was involved. Indeed, in his autobiography, he stated:

"I didn't want a wife I couldn't communicate with. I had to have a wife who would be as dedicated as I was. I wish I could say that I led her down this path, but I must say we went down it together because she was as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now."

Yet, Coretta felt strongly that her role, and the role of women in general in the civil rights movement, had long been "marginalized" and overlooked, according to The Guardian . As early as 1966, Corretta wrote in an article published in the British women's magazine New Lady:

“Not enough attention has been focused on the roles played by women in the struggle….Women have been the backbone of the whole civil rights movement.…Women have been the ones who have made it possible for the movement to be a mass movement.”

Historians and observers have noted that King did not support gender equality in the civil rights movement. In an article in The Chicago Reporter , a monthly publication that covers race and poverty issues, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein wrote that women "played a limited role in the SCLC." Lowenstein further explained:

"Here the experience of legendary organizer Ella Baker is instructive. Baker struggled to have her voice heard...by leaders of the male-dominated organization. This disagreement prompted Baker, who played a key role in the formation of the  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , to counsel young members like John Lewis to retain their independence from the older group. Historian Barbara Ransby wrote in her 2003 biography of Baker that the SCLC ministers were 'not ready to welcome her into the organization on an equal footing' because to do so 'would be too far afield from the gender relations they were used to in the church.'"

Montgomery Bus Boycott

When King arrived in Montgomery to join the Dexter Avenue church, Rosa Parks , secretary of the local NAACP chapter, had been arrested for refusing to relinquish her bus seat to a White man. Parks' December 1, 1955, arrest presented the perfect opportunity to make a case for desegregating the transit system.

E.D. Nixon, former head of the local NAACP chapter, and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, a close friend of King, contacted King and other clergymen to plan a citywide bus boycott. The group drafted demands and stipulated that no Black person would ride the buses on December 5.

That day, nearly 20,000 Black citizens refused bus rides. Because Black people comprised 90% of the passengers, most buses were empty. When the boycott ended 381 days later, Montgomery's transit system was nearly bankrupt. Additionally, on November 23, in the case of Gayle v. Browder , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "Racially segregated transportation systems enforced by the government violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," according to Oyez, an online archive of U.S. Supreme Court cases operated by the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law. The court also cited the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , where it had ruled in 1954 that "segregation of public education based solely on race (violates) the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," according to Oyez. On December 20, 1956, the Montgomery Improvement Association voted to end the boycott.

Buoyed by success, the movement's leaders met in January 1957 in Atlanta and formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to coordinate nonviolent protests through Black churches. King was elected president and held the post until his death.

Principles of Nonviolence

In early 1958, King's first book, "Stride Toward Freedom," which detailed the Montgomery bus boycott, was published. While signing books in Harlem, New York, King was stabbed by a Black woman with a mental health condition. As he recovered, he visited India's Gandhi Peace Foundation in February 1959 to refine his protest strategies. In the book, greatly influenced by Gandhi's movement and teachings, he laid six principles, explaining that nonviolence:

Is not a method for cowards; it does resist : King noted that "Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight." Nonviolence is the method of a strong person; it is not "stagnant passivity."

Does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding : Even in conducting a boycott, for example, the purpose is "to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent" and the goal is one of "redemption and reconciliation," King said.

Is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil: "It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil," King wrote. The fight is not one of Black people versus White people, but to achieve "but a victory for justice and the forces of light," King wrote.

Is a willingness to accept suffering without retaliation, to accept blows from the opponent without striking back: Again citing Gandhi, King wrote: "The nonviolent resister is willing to accept violence if necessary, but never to inflict it. He does not seek to dodge jail. If going to jail is necessary, he enters it 'as a bridegroom enters the bride’s chamber.'"

Avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit: Saying that you win through love not hate, King wrote: "The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuses to hate him."

Is based on the conviction that   the universe is on the side of justice: The nonviolent person "can accept suffering without retaliation" because the resister knows that "love" and "justice" will win in the end.

Buyenlarge / Contributor / Getty Images

In April 1963, King and the SCLC joined Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in a nonviolent campaign to end segregation and force Birmingham, Alabama, businesses to hire Black people. Fire hoses and vicious dogs were unleashed on the protesters by “Bull” Connor's police officers. King was thrown into jail. King spent eight days in the Birmingham jail as a result of this arrest but used the time to write "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," affirming his peaceful philosophy.

The brutal images galvanized the nation. Money poured in to support the protesters; White allies joined demonstrations. By summer, thousands of public facilities nationwide were integrated, and companies began to hire Black people. The resulting political climate pushed the passage of civil rights legislation. On June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy's assassination. The law prohibited racial discrimination in public, ensured the "constitutional right to vote," and outlawed discrimination in places of employment.

March on Washington

CNP / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Then came the March on Washington, D.C .,  on August 28, 1963. Nearly 250,000 Americans listened to speeches by civil rights activists, but most had come for King. The Kennedy administration, fearing violence, edited a speech by John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and invited White organizations to participate, causing some Black people to denigrate the event. Malcolm X labeled it the “farce in Washington."

Crowds far exceeded expectations. Speaker after speaker addressed them. The heat grew oppressive, but then King stood up. His speech started slowly, but King stopped reading from notes, either by inspiration or gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouting, “Tell 'em about the dream, Martin!”

He had had a dream, he declared, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” It was the most memorable speech of his life.

Nobel Prize

King, now known worldwide, was designated Time magazine's “Man of the Year” in 1963. He won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year and donated the $54,123 in winnings to advancing civil rights.

Not everyone was thrilled by King's success. Since the bus boycott, King had been under scrutiny by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoping to prove King was under communist influence, Hoover filed a request with Attorney General Robert Kennedy to put him under surveillance, including break-ins at homes and offices and wiretaps. However, despite "various kinds of FBI surveillance," the FBI found "no evidence of Communist influence," according to The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

In the summer of 1964, King's nonviolent concept was challenged by deadly riots in the North. King believed their origins were segregation and poverty and shifted his focus to poverty, but he couldn't garner support. He organized a campaign against poverty in 1966 and moved his family into one of Chicago's Black neighborhoods, but he found that strategies successful in the South didn't work in Chicago. His efforts were met with "institutional resistance, skepticism from other activists and open violence," according to Matt Pearce in an article in the Los Angeles Times , published in January 2016, the 50th anniversary of King's efforts in the city. Even as he arrived in Chicago, King was met by "a line of police and a mob of angry white people," according to Pearce's article. King even commented on the scene:

“I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hateful as I’ve seen here in Chicago. Yes, it’s definitely a closed society. We’re going to make it an open society.”

Despite the resistance, King and the SCLC worked to fight "slumlords, realtors and Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Democratic machine," according to the Times . But it was an uphill effort. "The civil rights movement had started to splinter. There were more militant activists who disagreed with King’s nonviolent tactics, even booing King at one meeting," Pearce wrote. Black people in the North (and elsewhere) turned from King's peaceful course to the concepts of Malcolm X.

King refused to yield, addressing what he considered the harmful philosophy of Black Power in his last book, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" King sought to clarify the link between poverty and discrimination and to address America's increased involvement in Vietnam, which he considered unjustifiable and discriminatory toward those whose incomes were below the poverty level as well as Black people.

King's last major effort, the Poor People's Campaign, was organized with other civil rights groups to bring impoverished people to live in tent camps on the National Mall starting April 29, 1968.

Earlier that spring, King had gone to Memphis, Tennessee, to join a march supporting a strike by Black sanitation workers. After the march began, riots broke out; 60 people were injured and one person was killed, ending the march.

On April 3, King gave what became his last speech. He wanted a long life, he said, and had been warned of danger in Memphis but said death didn't matter because he'd "been to the mountaintop" and seen "the promised land."

On April 4, 1968, King stepped onto the balcony of Memphis' Lorraine Motel. A rifle bullet tore into his face . He died at St. Joseph's Hospital less than an hour later. King's death brought widespread grief to a violence-weary nation. Riots exploded across the country.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

King's body was brought home to Atlanta to lie at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he had co-pastored with his father for many years. At King's April 9, 1968, funeral, great words honored the slain leader, but the most apropos eulogy was delivered by King himself, via a recording of his last sermon at Ebenezer:

"If any of you are around when I meet my day, I don't want a long funeral...I'd like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others...And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."

King had achieved much in the short span of 11 years. With accumulated travel topping 6 million miles, King could have gone to the moon and back 13 times. Instead, he traveled the world, making over 2,500 speeches, writing five books, and leading eight major nonviolent efforts for social change. King was arrested and jailed 29 times during his civil rights work, mainly in cities throughout the South, according to the website Face2Face Africa.  

King's legacy today lives through the Black Lives Matter movement, which is physically nonviolent but lacks Dr. King's principle on "the internal violence of the spirit" that says one should love, not hate, their oppressor. Dara T. Mathis wrote in an April 3, 2018, article in The Atlantic, that King's legacy of "militant nonviolence lives on in the pockets of mass protests" of the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the country. But Mathis added:

"Conspicuously absent from the language modern activists use, however, is an appeal to America’s innate goodness, a call to fulfill the promise set forth by its Founding Fathers."

And Mathis further noted:

"Although Black Lives Matter practices nonviolence as a matter of strategy, love for the oppressor does not find its way into their ethos."

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan created a national holiday to celebrate the man who did so much for the United States. Reagan summed up King's legacy with these words that he gave during a speech dedicating the holiday to the fallen civil rights leader:

"So, each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the Commandments he believed in and sought to live every day: Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. And I just have to believe that all of us—if all of us, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, do all we can to live up to those Commandments, then we will see the day when Dr. King's dream comes true, and in his words, 'All of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning,...land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'"

Coretta Scott King, who had fought hard to see the holiday established and was at the White House ceremony that day, perhaps summed up King's legacy most eloquently, sounding wistful and hopeful that her husband's legacy would continue to be embraced:

"He loved unconditionally. He was in constant pursuit of truth, and when he discovered it, he embraced it. His nonviolent campaigns brought about redemption, reconciliation, and justice. He taught us that only peaceful means can bring about peaceful ends, that our goal was to create the love community.

"America is a more democratic nation, a more just nation, a more peaceful nation because Martin Luther King, Jr., became her preeminent nonviolent commander."

Additional References

• Abernathy, Ralph David. "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography." Paperback, Unabridged edition, Chicago Review Press, April 1, 2010.
• Branch, Taylor. "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63." America in the King Years, Reprint edition, Simon & Schuster, November 15, 1989.
• Brown v. Board of Education Topeka . oyez.org.
• “ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) .”  The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute , 21 May 2018.
• Gayle v. Browder . oyez.org.
• Garrow, David. "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference." Paperback, Reprint edition, William Morrow Paperbacks, January 6, 2004.
• Hansen, Drew. " Mahalia Jackson and King's Improvisation . ” The New York Times, Aug. 27, 2013.
• Lowenstein, Jeff Kelly. “ Martin Luther King Jr., Women, and the Possibility of Growth .”  Chicago Reporter , 21 Jan. 2019.
• McGrew, Jannell. “ The Montgomery Bus Boycott: They Changed the World .
• “Principles of Nonviolent Resistance By Martin Luther King Jr.”  Resource Center for Nonviolence , 8 Aug. 2018.
• “ Remarks on Signing the Bill Making the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a National Holiday .”  Ronald Reagan , reaganlibrary.gov/archive.
• Theoharis, Jeanne. “' I Am Not a Symbol, I Am an Activist': the Untold Story of Coretta Scott King .”  The Guardian , Guardian News and Media, 3 Feb. 2018.
• X, Malcolm. "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley." Alex Haley, Attallah Shabazz, Paperback, Reissue edition, Ballantine Books, November 1992.

Michael Eli Dokos. “ Ever Knew Martin Luther King Jr. Was Arrested 29 Times for His Civil Rights Work? ”  Face2Face Africa , 23 Feb. 2020.

• Martin Luther King Jr. Quotations
• Famous Black American Men and Women of the 20th Century
• 7 20th Century Men Who Made History
• Biography of Fats Waller, Jazz Artist
• Biography of Mohandas Gandhi, Indian Independence Leader
• Biography of Hubert Humphrey, the Happy Warrior
• Jackie Robinson
• Gerald Ford: President of the United States, 1974-1977
• Biography of Pancho Villa, Mexican Revolutionary
• Biography of Walter Cronkite, Anchorman and TV News Pioneer
• Biography of Tom Hayden, Activist and Politician
• Biography of John F. Kennedy Jr.
• Adlai Stevenson: American Statesman and Presidential Candidate
• Frances Perkins: The First Woman to Serve in a Presidential Cabinet
• Biography of Booker T. Washington, Early Black Leader and Educator
• Biography of Saddam Hussein, Dictator of Iraq

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Martin Luther King Jr., Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., August 28, 1963

Local perspectives

Civil rights quiz

Lesson plan, study guide.

• African American Heroes

Hero for All: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never backed down in his stand against racism. Learn more about the life of this courageous hero who inspired millions of people to right a historical wrong.

A hero is born

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia , in 1929. At the time in that part of the country, segregation—or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants—was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and justice for Americans of all colors. King believed that peaceful refusal to obey unjust law was the best way to bring about social change.

Marching Forward

King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, lead demonstrators on the fourth day of a historic five-day march in 1965. Starting in Selma, Alabama , where local African Americans had been campaigning for the right to vote, King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators 54 miles to the state capitol of Montgomery.

Brave sacrifices

King was arrested several times during his lifetime. In 1960, he joined Black college students in a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter. Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy interceded to have King released from jail, an action that is credited with helping Kennedy win the presidency.

speaking out

King inspires a large crowd with one of his many speeches. Raised in a family of preachers, he's considered one of the greatest speakers in U.S. history.

INSPIRING OTHERS

King waves to supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. during the March on Washington . There, he delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech, which boosted public support for civil rights.

making history

President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes King's hand at the signing of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial segregation in publicly owned facilities.

FAMILY LIFE

King his wife, Coretta Scott King, sit with three of their four children in their Atlanta, Georgia, home in 1963. His wife shared the same commitment to ending the racist system they had both grown up under.

A win for peace

King receives the Nobel Prize for Peace from Gunnar Jahn, president of the Nobel Prize Committee, in Oslo, Norway , on December 10, 1964.

Remembering a hero

A crowd of mourners follows the casket of King through the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, after his assassination in April 4, 1968. King was shot by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Americans honor the civil rights activist on the third Monday of January each year, Martin Luther King Day.

Learn more at National Geographic.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY: COURTESY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; BEN MARTIN, TIME LIFE PICTURES / GETTY IMAGES; HORACE CORT; JULIAN WASSER, TIME LIFE PICTURES / GETTY IMAGES; AFP, GETTY IMAGES; HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY ASSOCIATED PRESS; COURTESY KEYSTONE / GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES

Explore more

African american pioneers of science, black history month, 1963 march on washington.

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your California Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell My Info
• National Geographic
• National Geographic Education
• Shop Nat Geo
• Customer Service
• Manage Your Subscription

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Martin Luther King Jr.: The iconic civil rights leader

Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader who fought for racial and economic justice. His oft-quoted "I Have a Dream" speech made an incredible impact on the country's racial, cultural and intellectual landscape.

• Ministry and civil rights leadership
• 'Letter from Birmingham City Jail'

March on Washington and 'I Have a Dream' speech

• Nobel Peace Prize
• Later work and assassination
• Legacy and memorial

Additional resources

Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, humanitarian and leader in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. In numerous speeches, marches and letters, he fought for racial and economic justice and was lauded for his nonviolent approach to civil disobedience. Assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39, King made an incredible impact on the country's racial, cultural and intellectual landscape.

Martin Luther King's early life

King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, to the Rev. Michael King and Alberta Williams King in Atlanta, Georgia. His birth name was Michael King Jr. The King family had deep roots in the Atlanta Black community and the African-American Baptist Church. Both his grandfather and father served in succession at Ebenezer Baptist Church (down the street from King's childhood home), and established it as a major congregation in Baptist circles. They were also both leaders in the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Michael King Sr. changed his name and his son's name to Martin Luther in 1934 to honor the 16th-century German religious reformer.

King attended segregated schools and graduated from high school at age 15, and in 1948 he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1948. He then went on to earn a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and a doctorate in Philosophy of Systematic Theology from Boston University. While in Boston, King met music student Coretta Scott. The two eventually married and had two daughters and two sons.

King contemplated an academic career but ultimately followed his father and grandfather to the pulpit. In 1954, he accepted the position of pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Martin Luther King's ministry and civil rights leadership

In Montgomery, King stepped up as a prominent leader in the civil rights movement. 

In 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man and was arrested, local leaders formed an organization to protest Parks' arrest and chose King to head the group. In this role, he became the primary spokesperson for what would become the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott. During the boycott, King was abused and arrested, and his house was bombed, but he remained a stalwart and committed leader.

Related: 7 reasons America still needs civil rights movements

King's activism, leadership and ministry drew heavily on his Christian principles as well as the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi . King skillfully drew upon a wide range of theological and philosophical influences to mobilize Black churches and communities and to appeal for white support. He turned from an untouchable view of God to a more supportive, reassuring concept, describing God as "a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life."

After the Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation, King helped expand the civil rights movement throughout the South. He was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and moved back to Atlanta to be closer to the organization’s headquarters and to become co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church. He also traveled and spoke widely, spreading the message of nonviolent protest; wrote five books; organized voting drives; led peaceful protests and marches; and was arrested more than 20 times.

Related: 13 significant protests that changed the course of history

Martin Luther King's 'Letter from Birmingham City Jail'

In 1963, King led a nonviolent protest in highly segregated Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign was met with brutality from the police, who attacked demonstrators with dogs and hoses. King was arrested and, in a cell, drafted his famous " Letter from Birmingham City Jail ," which became a manifesto for civil rights and civil disobedience. The letter combined ideas from the Bible, the Constitution and other respected texts.

Related: How to actually stop police brutality, according to science

On Aug. 28, 1963, about 250,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., in the largest demonstration of its kind in the city. At the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered the inspirational and oft-quoted " I Have a Dream " speech. The speech's most famous phrases include:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Related: A dream deferred: America's changing view of civil rights

The speech inspired the nation and solidified King's status as a national civil rights leader. After the march, King and other leaders met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss equal rights and an end to segregation.

Two days after the speech, the FBI wrote a memo detailing their suspicions that King was a communist. While FBI surveillance failed to find communist ties, the agency did find evidence that King was having extramarital affairs. FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan decided to use this information against King, and wrote an anonymous letter to him in 1964 urging King to kill himself, Yale historian Beverly Gage reported in The New York Times in 2014, after she found an unredacted version of the letter.

"There is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is," the letter said.

However, King suspected that the letter came from the FBI, as it was no secret that its director, J. Edgar Hoover, wanted to discredit King. 

Martin Luther King's Nobel Peace Prize

Following the March on Washington, Time magazine named King its "Man of the Year." The next year, in 1964 at the age of 35, King became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize . He donated the winnings to the civil rights movement. King received hundreds of other awards and several honorary degrees.

Martin Luther King's later work and assassination

In addition to his work on racial issues, King became an activist for economic justice and a critic of the Vietnam War. He formed an organization called the Poor People's Campaign, which was unpopular among some Black activists who wanted to take more radical approaches to social change, such as those advocated by the Black Power campaigns.

Related: What was the Black Panther Party?  

On April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., King delivered a poignant speech, intoning, "I've been to the mountaintop [and] I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."

The next day, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, King was assassinated. White supremacist James Earl Ray was convicted of the crime, though the identity of King's murderer was the subject of some controversy.

Martin Luther King's legacy and memorial

King had a profound impact on the United States. The March on Washington was influential in the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Act, which essentially made segregation illegal. The Voting Rights Act was passed as the result of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March.

In 1968, Coretta Scott King founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She also led the effort to make King’s birthday a national holiday, first celebrated in 1986.

Related: The environmental movement's debt to Martin Luther King Jr. (Op-Ed)

On Aug. 28, 2011 — the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington — a memorial to King was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The memorial consists of a 30-foot-tall (9 meters) statue of King carved into the "Stone of Hope" breaking through two boulders representing the "Mountain of Despair."

• The King Center
• National Park Service: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
• Library of Congress: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• MLK Day.gov

This article was originally published on Jan. 16, 2014. It was updated on Jan. 15, 2021 by Live Science reference editor Kimberly Hickok and on Jan. 13, 2023 by Live Science editor Laura Geggel.  

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Jessie Szalay is a contributing writer to FSR Magazine. Prior to writing for Live Science, she was an editor at Living Social. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from George Mason University and a bachelor's degree in sociology from Kenyon College. 

Live Science x HowTheLightGetsIn — Get discounted tickets to the world’s largest ideas and music festival

Do opposites really attract in relationships?

SETI searches for alien life in over 1,000 galaxies using unexplored radio frequencies

Most Popular

• 2 DNA reveals inbreeding, smallpox and violent ends among cave-dwelling Christians in medieval Spain
• 3 Boom Supersonic's XB-1 prototype aces 2nd test flight
• 4 Defense system common to all life came from 'Asgard'
• 5 Space photo of the week: Milky Way's galactic twin captured by Dark Energy Camera

The New Definitive Biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

“King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig, is the first comprehensive account of the civil rights icon in decades.

Credit... PS Spencer

Supported by

• Share full article

By Dwight Garner

• Published May 8, 2023 Updated May 28, 2023
• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop.org

When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.

KING: A Life , by Jonathan Eig

Listen to This Article

Growing up, he was called Little Mike, after his father, the Baptist minister Michael King. Later he sometimes went by M.L. Only in college did he drop his first name and began to introduce himself as Martin Luther King Jr. This was after his father visited Germany and, inspired by accounts of the reform-minded 16th-century friar Martin Luther, adopted his name.

King Jr. was born in 1929. Were he alive he would be 94, the same age as Noam Chomsky. The prosperous King family lived on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. One writer, quoted by Jonathan Eig in his supple, penetrating, heartstring-pulling and compulsively readable new biography, “King: A Life,” called it “the richest Negro street in the world.”

Eig’s is the first comprehensive biography of King in three decades. It draws on a landslide of recently released White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, oral histories and other material, and it supplants David J. Garrow’s 1986 biography “Bearing the Cross” as the definitive life of King, as Garrow himself deposed recently in The Spectator . It also updates the material in Taylor Branch’s magisterial trilogy about America during the King years.

King and his two siblings had the trappings of middle-class life in Atlanta: bicycles, a dog, allowances. But they were sickly aware of the racism that made white people shun them, that kept them out of most of the city’s parks and swimming pools, among other degradations.

Their father expected a lot from his children. He had a temper. He was a stern disciplinarian who spanked with a belt. Their mother was a calmer, sweeter, more stable presence. King would inherit qualities from both.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Advertisement

Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Occupation: Civil Rights Leader
• Born: January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, GA
• Died: April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN
• Best known for: Advancing the Civil Rights Movement and his "I Have a Dream" speech

• King was the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a national holiday.
• At the Atlanta premier of the movie Gone with the Wind , Martin sang with his church choir.
• There are over 730 streets in the United States named after Martin Luther King, Jr.
• One of his main influences was Mohandas Gandhi who taught people to protest in a non-violent manner.
• He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• The name on his original birth certificate is Michael King. This was a mistake, however. He was supposed to be named after his father who was named for Martin Luther, the leader of the Christian reformation movement.
• He is often referred to by his initials MLK.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

• Civil Rights Timeline
• African-American Civil Rights Timeline
• Magna Carta
• Bill of Rights
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Glossary and Terms

Major King Events Chronology: 1929-1968

Main navigation.

Short Biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

Reading comprehension: short biography of martin luther king jr., comprehension, related materials.

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

This Day In History : January 15

Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. You can navigate days by using left and right arrows

Martin Luther King Jr. born

On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia , the son of a Baptist minister . King received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 helped organize the first major protest of the African American civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott . Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi , he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and the movement gained momentum.

A powerful orator, King appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and Northern whites. In 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph led the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; the event’s grand finale was King’s famous “I Have a Dream”  speech. Two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial to hear the stirring speech. 

In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. Later that year, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize (in 2014 Malala Yousafzai became the youngest to receive the prize at age 17). In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans. He was assassinated in Memphis , Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

Quotes from 7 of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Most Notable Speeches

From 'I Have a Dream' to 'Beyond Vietnam,' revisit the words and messages of the legendary civil rights leader.

Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination

King Assassination: Background In the last years of his life, Dr. King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change. These young radicals stuck closer to the ideals of the Black nationalist leader Malcolm X (himself assassinated in 1965), who had condemned King’s advocacy of nonviolence […]

When Martin Luther King Jr. Considered a Presidential Run

In 1967, several prominent antiwar activists urged MLK to run for president with Dr. Spock as his VP.

Also on This Day in History January | 15

Wikipedia launches

The Jeannette Rankin Brigade: 5,000 women march against Vietnam War

This Day in History Video: What Happened on January 15

Pilot Sully Sullenberger performs “Miracle on the Hudson”

“american pie” hits #1 on the pop charts, vermont declares independence from colony of new york.

Wake Up to This Day in History

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Get all of today's events in just one email featuring a range of topics.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

First appearance of the Democratic Party donkey

Elizabeth i crowned queen of england, rebel leaders are murdered in failed coup in berlin, packers beat chiefs in first super bowl, “the hunchback of notre dame” is finished, boston shocked by deadly molasses flood, “hill street blues” begins run, soviets send troops into azerbaijan, the “witch of buchenwald” is sentenced to prison.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Famous Speech Almost Didn’t Have the Phrase “I Have a Dream”

After staying up until 4 a.m. to craft a speech he hoped would have the same impact as the Gettysburg Address, MLK went off-script for his most iconic words.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

The best-laid plans are often better off ignored—at least that was the case with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s most “transformative and influential” speeches alongside Abraham Lincoln ’s 1863 Gettysburg Address and Winston Churchill ’s 1940 “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech , the impact of King’s words that hot summer afternoon in Washington D.C. struck a chord with civil rights advocates near and far and became a powerful rallying cry.

King’s speech added fuel to the ongoing movement for racial equality. Its impact helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , outlawing racial segregation in the United States.

But those four famous words almost didn’t make it into the speech.

King wanted the speech to be “like the Gettysburg Address”

Before he stepped up to the podium that day, King was already known on the national stage for his civil rights work. He had already been a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and the Greensboro sit-in movement in 1960 and was known for his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail , where he was taken after a peaceful demonstration.

The Baptist minister, who was also the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was known as a powerful orator, but the bulk of his audience had been within the Black community. Fellow civil rights activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin had reached out to him and other prominent figures in the movement to organize the march followed by three hours of speeches.

The three major television networks at the time—ABC, CBS, and NBC—had all promised to cover the event, so King knew the stakes were high. Even though he was limited to five minutes, his goal was clear: To make a speech with impact on the nation “like the Gettysburg address.”

He confided in a team of trusted advisors

To carefully craft the right words, King turned to his inner circle. Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, two of his advisers, wrote the first draft. “When it came to my speech drafts, [King] often acted like an interior designer,” Jones said, according to The Guardian . “I would deliver four strong walls, and he would use his God-given abilities to furnish the place so it felt like home.”

Even though they knew the importance of the speech, they were only able to gather as a group at the Willard Hotel the evening before the speech. “We met in the lobby rather than in a suite, under the assumption that the lobby would be harder to wiretap,” Jones wrote in The Washington Post . “It was with this odd start, hiding in plain sight, that 12 hours before the March on Washington began, Martin gathered with a small group of advisers to hammer out the themes of his speech.”

Even though King was happy with the draft, he had wanted to get as much input as possible. “So that evening he had a cross-section of advisers present to fill any blind spots,” Jones wrote. “Cleveland Robinson, Walter Fauntroy, Bernard Lee, Ralph Abernathy , Lawrence Reddick, and I joined him, along with Wyatt Walker and Bayard Rustin , who were in and out of our deliberations.”

Of course, everyone had their own take, which became a challenge to juggle. “As we ate sandwiches, our suggestions tumbled out,” Jones remembers. “Cleve, Lawrence, and I saw the speech as an opportunity to stake an ideological and political marker in the debate over civil rights and segregation. Others were more inclined for Martin to deliver a sort of church sermon, steeped in parables and Bible quotes. Some, however, worried that biblical language would obfuscate the real message—reform of the legal system. And still others wanted Martin to direct his remarks to the students, Black and white, who would be marching that day.”

“I have a dream” was originally cut from the speech

The idea of the “dream” had actually been one that King long talked about, almost like a theme throughout his previous speeches. Walker had the strongest opinion: “Don’t use the lines about ‘I have a dream.’ It’s trite, it’s cliche. You’ve used it too many times already.”

Respecting his view, the mention of the dream was cut from the speech. At 4 a.m., King finally went to bed. “I am now going upstairs to my room to counsel with my Lord,” he said, according to The Guardian . “I will see you all tomorrow.”

“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment”

While everything was meticulously planned, the organizers still worried there might not be the turnout they hoped for. After all, they set a goal of 100,000 to attend the March on Washington.

But on August 28—despite the heat in the nation’s capital, which reached 87 degrees Fahrenheit with uncomfortable humidity—people started showing up en masse. Among them were notable names: Josephine Baker , Marlon Brando , Harry Belafonte , Sammy Davis Jr. , James Garner , Charlton Heston, Paul Newman , and Sidney Poitier .

“It was truly staggering. Estimates vary widely, depending on the agenda of who was keeping count, but those of us who were involved in planning the March put the number at a minimum of 250,000,” Jones wrote in his book Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation . “They showed up to connect with the Movement, to draw strength from the speakers and from each other.”

By the time it was King’s turn, some people had already headed out because of the stifling heat. But nothing was holding him back from his moment on the national stage. “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation,” he first addressed the crowd.

Then, much like the Lincoln speech he sought inspiration from that started “Four score and seven years ago,” King said “Five score years ago,” and highlighted the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation . “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free,” he continued, before describing the state of African American life in the United States.

Then he moved into the purpose of the march: “In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, Black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment,” he continued, emphasizing why it was essential for imminent action. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

A gospel singer prompted King to say “I have a dream”

While his words were impactful, they didn’t have the tremendous punch he was hoping for. But then gospel singer Mahalia Jackson , who had sung “I’ve Been ’Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” and was close to King, instinctively shouted out, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin.”

Throwing the script out the window, he turned to his dream.

“Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream,” he started before launching into his most famous passage:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

Building up a cadence that had the crowd engaged and enthused, he concluded: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”

King knew that abandoning his manuscript created the strongest impact

Looking back on the day, Jones notes a shift as soon King threw all the prepared remarks out the window: “When he was reading from his text, he stood like a lecturer. But from the moment he set that text aside, he took on the stance of a Baptist preacher.” And that was the kind of messaging America needed to hear.

Even King looked back on all the long hours preparing and realized that nothing resonated more than reading a crowd and trusting his instinct.

“I started out reading the speech, and I read it down to a point,” helater said. “The audience response was wonderful that day… and all of a sudden this thing came to me that… I’d used many times before… ‘I have a dream.’ And I just felt that I wanted to use it here… I used it, and at that point I just turned aside from the manuscript altogether. I didn’t come back to it.”

Black History

Kamala Harris

Ray Charles

Whoopi Goldberg

Stevie Wonder

Sylvia Rivera

Jesse Owens

Opal Lee: The “Grandmother of Juneteenth”

13 Powerful Marsha P. Johnson Quotes

Marsha P. Johnson

Naomi Osaka

Johnnie Cochran