Martin Luther King, Jr.

Civil rights champion Martin Luther King, Jr. entered the world in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. His studies at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University deepened his appreciation for Mahatma Ghandi's non-violent strategies for social change, and he finished his Ph.D. in systematic theology in 1955. Turning away from numerous academic positions, he chose instead to serve as pastor of Montgomery, Alabama's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. On December 5, 1955, just five days after Rosa Parks' landmark refusal to conform to the city's segregationist busing policies, he became president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association and thereby launched his public career. By leading the local African-American community's boycott of the city bus system, he gained national prominence even while his home was firebombed and he stood trial for conspiracy against the bus company. Nevertheless, by the end of 1956 Montgomery's buses had been integrated and the United States Supreme Court ruled Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional.

King united with fellow African-American religious leaders in 1957 to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, then released his debut book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, the following year. With the arrival of the 1960s he was widely viewed as Black America's foremost spokesman, though his commitment to non-violence frequently clashed with younger, more militant elements inside the Civil Rights movement. Widespread protests across the country reached their peak on August 28, 1963, when King addressed an audience of more than 250,000 demonstrators on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., delivering his celebrated "I have a dream" speech. Time magazine named him Man of the Year that December, and he received the Nobel Peace Prize one year later. Divisions inside the Black community, however, began to erode his authority as figures such as Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael advanced positions sharply at odds with King's peaceful approach.

King met his fiercest opposition from white authorities. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover conducted an intense campaign of surveillance and harassment, labeling him "the most dangerous man in America, and a moral degenerate." His condemnation of United States involvement in the growing Vietnam conflict also cost him backing among many white liberals. Undeterred, he organized the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery that helped secure passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year. While in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a local sanitation workers' strike, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Although James Earl Ray was found guilty of the crime, the circumstances have remained a subject of debate and speculation for decades. After his death, his widow, Coretta Scott King, created the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and his birthday was proclaimed a federal holiday in 1986. Numerous commercial recordings preserve many of King's most celebrated speeches.