- Wikipedia

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\"Martin Luther King\" and \"MLK\" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther King (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

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The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
$\"Black$ King in 1964

1st President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
In office January 10, 1957 \u2013 April 4, 1968
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Ralph Abernathy
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Personal details
Born	Michael King Jr. (1929-01-15)January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Died	April 4, 1968(1968-04-04) (aged 39) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Manner of death	Assassination by gunshot
Resting place	Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
Spouse	\n Coretta Scott (m. 1953)
Children	Yolanda Martin III Dexter Bernice
Parents	Martin Luther King Sr. Alberta Williams King
Relatives	Christine King Farris (sister) A. D. King (brother) Alveda King (niece)
Education	Morehouse College (BA) Crozer Theological Seminary (BDiv) Boston University (PhD)
Occupation	Baptist minister activist \n
Monuments	Full list
Movement	Civil rights peace anti-war
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Awards	Nobel Peace Prize (1964) Presidential Medal of Freedom (posthumous, 1977) Congressional Gold Medal (posthumous, 2004)
Signature	$\"\"$
Nickname	MLK
\n \n \n Martin Luther King Jr.'s voice \n \n King giving a press conference at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Recorded August 1964 \n

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Campaigns\n

Death and memorial\n

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 \u2013 April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.\n

A black church leader, King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights.^[1] He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his \"I Have a Dream\" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.^[2]\n

King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In 1964, the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War.\n

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. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes he was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit ruling named unspecified \"government agencies\" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Department of Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.^[5] The assassination remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King's death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed in 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.\n

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Martin Luther King of Georgia
Pastor and Martyr
Honored in	Holy Christian Orthodox Church Episcopal Church (United States) Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Canonized	September 9, 2016, The Christian Cathedral by Timothy Paul Baymon
Feast	April 4 January 15 (Episcopalian and Lutheran)

Title\n	Year\n	Peak\n
US ^[468]\n
The Great March to Freedom\n	1963\n	141\n
The March on Washington\n	102\n
Freedom March on Washington\n	119\n
I Have a Dream\n	1968\n	69\n
The American Dream\n	173\n
In Search of Freedom\n	150\n
In the Struggle for Freedom and Human Dignity\n	154\n

Title\n	Year\n	Peak\n	Album\n
US ^[468]\n
\"I Have a Dream\"\n (Gordy 7023 \u2013 b/w We Shall Overcome, Liz Lands)\n \n	1968\n	88\n	I Have a Dream (1968)\n

v t e Civil Rights Memorial
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
Designer	\n Maya Lin \n
Martyrs	\n Louis Allen \n Willie Brewster \n Benjamin Brown \n Johnnie Mae Chappell \n James Chaney \n Addie Mae Collins \n Vernon Dahmer \n Jonathan Daniels \n Henry Hezekiah Dee \n Roman Ducksworth Jr. \n Willie Edwards \n Medgar Evers \n Andrew Goodman \n Paul Guihard \n Samuel Hammond Jr. \n Jimmie Lee Jackson \n Wharlest Jackson \n Martin Luther King Jr. \n Bruce W. Klunder \n George W. Lee \n Herbert Lee \n Viola Liuzzo \n Carol Denise McNair \n Delano Herman Middleton \n Charles Eddie Moore \n Oneal Moore \n William Lewis Moore \n Mack Charles Parker \n Lemuel Penn \n James Reeb \n John Earl Reese \n Carole Robertson \n Michael Schwerner \n Henry Ezekial Smith \n Lamar Smith \n Emmett Till \n Clarence Triggs \n Virgil Lamar Ware \n Cynthia Wesley \n Ben Chester White \n Sammy Younge Jr. \n
Related	\n Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore \n Mississippi Cold Case \n
\n Civil Rights Movement \n $\"\"$ Civil rights movement portal \n

v t e Coretta Scott King
April 27, 1927 \u2013 January 30, 2006
Life	\n Childhood and education \n Civil rights movement \n 1967 San Francisco anti-war march \n King Center for Nonviolent Social Change \n 2004 Gandhi Peace Prize \n Death and funeral \n
Other	\n Martin Luther King Jr. Day \n King v. Trustees of Boston Univ. \n
Reaction	\n Recognition and tributes \n
Namesakes	\n Coretta Scott King Award \n Coretta Scott King Young Women's Leadership Academy \n
Family	\n Martin Luther King Jr. (husband) \n Yolanda King (daughter) \n Martin Luther King III (son) \n Dexter King (son) \n Bernice King (daughter) \n Edythe Scott Bagley (sister) \n
Depictions	\n King (1978 miniseries) \n Our Friend, Martin (1999 animated) \n Betty & Coretta (2013 film) \n Selma (2014 film) \n The Embrace (2023 statue) \n Rustin (2023 film) \n
\n $\"\"$ Commons \n $\"\"$ Wikiquote \n

Authority control databases $\"Edit$
International	ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Australia Czech Republic Russia Spain Portugal 2 Netherlands Norway Taiwan Latvia Croatia Chile Greece Korea Sweden Poland Vatican Israel Catalonia Belgium
Academics	CiNii
Artists	MusicBrainz Grammy Awards
People	Trove Deutsche Biographie DDB
Other	IdRef NARA SNAC RISM

Early life and education

Birth

Early childhood

Adolescence

Morehouse College

Religious education

Marriage and family

Activism and organizational leadership

Montgomery bus boycott, 1955

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Survived knife attack, 1958

Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the 1960 elections

Albany Movement, 1961

Birmingham campaign, 1963

March on Washington, 1963

St. Augustine, Florida, 1964

Biddeford, Maine, 1964

New York City, 1964

Scripto strike in Atlanta, 1964

Selma voting rights movement and \"Bloody Sunday\", 1965

Chicago open housing movement, 1966

Opposition to the Vietnam War

Correspondence with Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh

Poor People's Campaign, 1968

Global policy

Assassination and aftermath

Aftermath

Allegations of conspiracy

Legacy

South Africa

United Kingdom

United States

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Veneration

Ideas, influences, and political stances

Christianity

The Measure of a Man

Nonviolence

Criticism within the movement

Activism and involvement with Native Americans

Politics

Compensation

Television

State surveillance and coercion

FBI surveillance and wiretapping

Police surveillance

NSA monitoring of King's communications

Allegations of communism

CIA surveillance

Allegations of adultery

Awards and recognition

Five-dollar bill

Memorials

Honorary doctorates

Works

Discography

Albums

Singles

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links

Martin Luther King Jr.

Talks

5 June, 1955