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Martin Luther King

✨ 1929–1968, Pastor and civil rights activist

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and civil rights leader who became one of the most important figures in the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination in the United States. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, he studied at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University, where he earned a doctorate in systematic theology in 1955.

He became a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, and rose to national prominence during the 1955–1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, which followed Rosa Parks's arrest. King advocated nonviolent protest, drawing partly on the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1957, he helped establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that coordinated campaigns against segregation.

King played leading roles in major civil rights campaigns, including demonstrations in Birmingham and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. His activism helped build support for major federal legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1964, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to nonviolent resistance against racial injustice.

Later, he broadened his work to address poverty, economic inequality and the Vietnam War. In 1968, he traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking sanitation workers. He was assassinated there on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. His work had a lasting influence on the American civil rights movement, and his ideas about nonviolent action and equality continued to influence social and political movements around the world.

💡 Did you know?

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King gathered 250,000 people to deliver his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech. He imagined a day when children of all colors would play together like brothers and sisters. This message was so powerful that it's still studied today in all the world's schools to learn respect.

Do you know that Martin Luther King organized a very original protest? For over a year, thousands of people refused to take the bus because they were not treated fairly inside. They preferred walking miles every day to show they wanted equality. And it worked: the rules eventually changed!

Martin Luther King loved Gospel and Jazz music very much. He said music helped one be brave when life was difficult. Often, before speaking to a crowd, he asked a female singer to sing a song to give him strength. For him, a beautiful song was like a prayer for freedom.