43. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr was a Baptist minister who led the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that Rosa Parks’ arrest spurred in 1955. Despite holding a doctorate from a well-esteemed seminary, he moved his family to the slums of Montgomery, Alabama. Why? To lead the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Furthermore, to turn the boycott into a larger movement, he organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. MLK promoted nonviolence, which he learned from Gandhi’s disciples in India. His work in the Civil Rights Movement led to him receiving a Nobel prize a few years before he was assassinated.