Today in history: Martin Luther King Jr is born
He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
American Christian minister and activist, Martin Luther King Jr. was born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
King became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.
He is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
On 14 October 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance.
He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People’s Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee.
His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities and there were allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting.
Sentenced to 99 years in prison for King’s murder, effectively a life sentence as Ray was 41 at the time of conviction, Ray served 29 years of his sentence and died from hepatitis in 1998 while in prison.
Information sourced from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
