8. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Michael King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. Like his father, who also had been a Baptist minister, King adopted the name Martin Luther in honor of the German Protestant leader. Martin Luther King Jr. came to prominence as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s to his death in 1968. King’s activism was instrumental in bringing about the political change which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For his nonviolent activism in the pursuit of civil rights for Black Americans in the United States King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
The highlight of King’s activism arguably was the famous March on Washington on August 1968. A crowd of approximately 200,000 gathered for a mass demonstration calling for peaceful change. King delivered arguably the most famous speech in history, the powerfully eloquent “I have a dream” speech. In it, King spoke of his hope for a time where racial discrimination would be a thing of the past:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…I have a dream that my four little 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.”
On April 3, 1968, King gave another speech, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, in which he said, “I have been to the mountaintop. I have 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.” The following day, April 4th, 1968, King was shot and killed by a sniper outside of his room at the Lorraine Motel. King’s killer was later identified as James Earl Ray. Ray pleaded guilty to King’s murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Ray later alleged that he had been coerced into confessing to the murder and that he was the innocent victim of a larger conspiracy. King’s son Dexter met with Ray in prison and later publicly called for the case against him to be reopened. The case never came to trial and Ray died in prison in 1998. Several U.S. government investigations into King’s murder concluded that Ray acted alone.