Martin Luther

King, Jr.

• 1929 – 1968• Born in the U.S.• Christian• Clergyman and civil rights leader

The house where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born501 Auburn Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia

Born Michael Luther King Jr. on January 15, 1929, the son and grandson of Baptist pastors in Atlanta, he attended segregated public schools and high school in Georgia.

He studied theology in Pennsylvania, then completed a doctorate at Boston University, where he married Coretta Scott.

Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi never met.

But King was a student of Mahatma Gandhi's extremely successful non-violent methods of civil protest, and adopted them as a staunch theme of the American civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King’s comments

on Gandhi’s influence.

Martin Luther King Jr. lived in an era when blacks were victims to segregation and extreme prejudice in the United States, particularly in the south.

June, 1964: Black children integrate the swimming pool of the Monson Motel. To force them out, the owner pours muriatic acid into the water.

Most public facilities were segregated.

Lynchings were common in the southern U.S.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in the use of peaceful demonstrations, acting with love and calm. He entered the civil rights movement, which worked toward political and social equality for people of all races, in 1955. He became 20th century America's most compelling and effective civil rights leader.

In 1955, civil rights activists asked King, the young, newly married pastor of a Montgomery, Alabama, church, to lead a bus boycott aimed at ending segregation on public transportation in Montgomery. The boycott was started by the refusal of a woman named Rosa Parks to give up her bus seat to a white passenger; she was arrested. For more than a year, African Americans, a majority of the bus riders in the city, stayed off the bus in protest of Parks' arrest. Finally, in 1956, the Supreme Court banned segregation on public transportation, and the boycott ended.

Martin Luther King was frequently arrested and assaulted. One of these arrests took place during the 382 day bus boycott. He also had his house bombed.

Martin Luther King’s King’s “Litany of Woes”

King asked civil rights activists to remain non-violent as they worked to end racial oppression. His advice was to use sit-ins, marches, and peaceful demonstrations to bring attention to issues of inequality. Even in jail, King continued preaching this message. He was arrested while protesting in Alabama to desegregate lunch counters.

The blacks were among 100 who entered several segregated stores as part of a peaceful demonstration. Some protestors who did manage to sit at whites-only counters had lye, a substance that burns, poured on their hands.

A white woman hurriedly bars the way as black Americans try to enter the lunchroom of a Memphis, Tennessee department store.

Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson, Mark Martin at a F.W. Woolworth luncheon counter, staging a sit-in to protest

segregated lunch counters (Greensboro, N.C., 1960.)

Martin Luther King was famous for his passionate speeches.

King’s “Let Freedom Ring” message

King’s letter written in the Birmingham City Jail

Between 1957 and 1968, MLK Jr. traveled all over the country, giving hundreds of speeches, writing books and articles, and fighting peacefully against injustice. Even when in jail, his writings were powerful.

In 1963, King participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he delivered his

famous "I Have A Dream" speech to a crowd of 250,000.

A video clip from Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech

An excerpt from Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech

In this speech King emphasized his belief that the civil rights movement would create a society in which

character, rather than color, prevailed.

Aftermath of a bomb explosion near the Gaston Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. and leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were staying, May,1963.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sits in a jail cell in the Jefferson County Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama on November 3, 1967.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s jail cell door, erected in Maine as a monument to the civil rights leader.

Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

He was standing on the balcony of his motel room, before going on a protest march.

Just moments after Dr. King was killed, a photographer took this picture. King lies on the balcony floor. The witnesses all point in the direction the fatal shot was fired from.

King’s body being removed from the 2nd floor balcony.

Dispatcher’s recording after Martin Luther King’s assassination

The man arrested for the killing was James Earl Ray.

Wanted poster for James Earl Ray. Ray was arrested about two months after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death on the balcony of Memphis' Lorraine Motel. Authorities captured Ray at London's Heathrow Airport, where he was trying to use a false passport to get to Belgium. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the King slaying, and died in prison in 1998 from complications of kidney disease.

The official story is that a single man, James Earl Ray, was staying at a rooming house located at 422 South Main Street. In the back of this rooming house was a shared bathroom with a window that looked out onto the swimming pool of the Lorraine Motel.

According to the U.S. government, James Earl Ray shot Dr. Martin Luther King from the window circled in the photo. There is no physical evidence to prove this charge.

According to some, James Earl Ray spent his life in prison based on a coerced confession which he immediately retracted. None of the ballistics tests done on the rifle James Earl Ray allegedly used, were able to link that rifle to the actual bullet that killed Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King's family does not think James Earl Ray was the killer, and recently won a civil court case proving there was a conspiracy.

A wreath on the Lorraine Motel marks the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther King’s funeral procession.

Martin Luther King’s tomb.

Statue of Dr. Martin Luther King at Morehouse College.

There are many statues of Martin Luther Kingthroughout the US.

Many books have been written on Martin Luther King Jr. - about his life and his death.

In 1964, TIME

MAGAZINE named

Martin Luther King

Man of the Year

Martin Luther King was honoured with his picture in front of the Washington monument on an American stamp.

For his efforts, Martin Luther King was

awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He is the youngest man to receive the

Nobel Peace Prize, in 1964, and gives the prize money to the

civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King's Last Testimony

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. 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. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

 - Final words from Martin Luther King's last speech, given in

Memphis Tennessee the night before he was killed (April 4, 1968)