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Facts about Martin Luther King Jr
1 – Martin Luther King Jr was born on January 15, 1929.
2 – He spent his early years in Atlanta, Georgia.
3 – In 1955 he became pastor of the church and led a successful boycott of city buses for ten months which eventually ended segregation.
Martin Luther King Jr led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 which lasted over 6 months until segregation laws were repealed.
4 – He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
5 – Martin Luther King Jr graduated from Morehouse College and went on to attend the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.
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6 – After finishing school, he began preaching at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
7 – His father was a minister and his mother cared for the family while he studied at Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary.
8 – Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
9 – Martin Luther King Jr.’s mother’s name was Alberta Williams King. His father’s name was Michael Luther King Sr.
10 – In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
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11 – Martin Luther King Jr had two siblings – an older sister Christine King Farris and a younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams King.
12 – Martin Luther King went to Morehouse College for his undergraduate degree.
He also attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania for a year before transferring to Boston University where he earned his doctorate degree in theology.
13 – In 1955, King became the minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
14 – After being arrested for taking part in an unauthorized protest march against segregation laws on March 2nd 1957, he wrote his famous letter from Birmingham jail to other civil rights leaders explaining why it is important to continue protesting despite possible consequences.
15 – On December 1 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and was arrested; this led Martin Luther King Jr., who had been working with civil rights activists since 1952, to become more involved because it showed how unfair racism could be when black people were not even allowed seats on buses or any other public place.
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16 – On December 5 1956, after hearing about Rosa Parks’ arrest he organized what is now known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted until December 20 1956 when segregation laws were finally struck down by the Supreme Court.
17 – In 1983 Congress established a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., which is observed annually as MLK Day – it falls on third Monday each January.
18 – He led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by him
19 – His assassination sparked riots across America because people were angry about his death.
20 – He was honored with a memorial at the National Mall in Dc that includes a 30-foot granite sculpture of him standing atop an imposing stone pedestal with quotes from his speeches engraved on all four sides along with passages from the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other historic documents.
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21 – Martin Luther King Jr was married to Coretta Scott King from 1953 to 1968.
22 – Together they had four children – Martin Luther King III, Yolanda, Bernie and Dexter. All four children committed their lives to activism.
23 – Famous Martin Luther King Jr quotes include:
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
The time is always right to do what is right.
24 – Other famous quotes include:
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.
25 – Here is an excerpt from his famous I HAVE A DREAM speech:
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so 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.
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!
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.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”2
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom 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!
