Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's a Fact 
Martin luther king was chosen as Time magazines Man Of The Year in 1964 and received the Nobel Prize for Peace in the same year as well. He is the youngest man to get the Nobel Peace Prize as of 2009. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.
```````(1929-1968)
~~~~~~Afro-American Peace Maker

Born: January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia, United States 
Died: April 4, 1968 (aged 39) Memphis, Tennessee, United States 
Movement: African-American Civil Rights Movement and Peace movement 
Major organizations: Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) 
Notable prizes: Nobel Peace Prize (1964) Residential Medal of Freedom (1977, Posthu Mous) Congressional Gold Medal (2004, Posthumous) 
Major Monuments: Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial (planned) 
Alma mater: Morehouse College Crozer Theological Seminary Boston University 
Religion: Baptist 

One of the greatest pacifists of 20th century was Mahatma Ghandi who was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic in 1948. After this an Afro-American preacher Martin Luther King Jr who was inspired by Ghandi, spearheaded a pacifist campaign in USA to get equal rights to Americans of frican heritage.

Martin Luther King came from a family of pastors as his father and grand-father were also pastors. After the American Civil War, there were others who stood up for the improvements in of Afro-Americans and civil rights advocates. These include Malcolm X, Stokey Car-michael etc. But what distinguished Martin Luther King was that he used his great oratory skills as well as his Baptist Christian background to take the message of peace and equality of humanity into the minds of Ameri-cans both white and black. He thought peace would be the vehicle that would take this message to eradicate desegregation in American society. In other words what king believed was that it was possible for blacks to live side by side with the whites peacefully. For this achievement King was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. 

King came into the limelight of civil right movement in the late 50's as he became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala-bama. In 1955 he received his PhD from Boston University. In the same year a defiant action of an Afro-American woman came into limelight as she did not stand up and refused to give her seat in the bus to a white. She was Rosa Parks, who later became a civil rights activ-ist herself. (It should be noted that in some states of US during the 50's a black person was not allowed to sit in front seats of a bus. They had to give their seats to whites.) This was the time that King was also in Alabama and it was the right time for people like King to discuss and practically inspire the aspirations of the blacks to get equal rights. Around this time King initiated Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) and spearheaded the campaign that would repel unjust discriminatory laws against blacks. After Rosa Park's defiant act the blacks boycotted the buses and this strike went on till 1956. By December of that year the US Supreme Court passed the bill that desegregated these law as unconstitutional.

By this time King practically had implemented non-vio-lent acts against segregation and even toured India to learn about Ghandian methods of passive resistance. 

The new president of USA in 1961 John F. Kennedy was suportive of Kings' activities. In 1963 August 28th King and his supporters marched into Washington D. C. to get support for Civil Rights Act which would be passed by Kennedy's succesecor Lyndon B. Johnson who hailed from the Ssouthern state of Texas. Dur-ing the civil rights march King delivered his famous "I have a dream "speech, where he said "I have a dream that my four 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...". 

King's acheivement of securing civil rights of blacks went a long way for other minorities of USA to get equal rights as well. These include Jews and Asians as well. During this time King was also a vocal opponent of the vietnam war, which was raging in vietnam. 

In 1968 king was shot dead by James Earl Ray at Lorraine Motel in Memphis , while seeking to assist a garbage workers' strike. 

Posted in: Greatest Leaders