Martin Luther King Jr. - Wikipedia

Martin Luther King Jr. - Wikipedia
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(Redirected from
Martin Luther King
American minister and civil rights activist (1929–1968)
"Martin Luther King" and "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see
Martin Luther King (disambiguation)
and
MLK (disambiguation)
The Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr.
King in 1964
1st President of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
In office
January 10, 1957 – April 4, 1968
Preceded by
Position established
Succeeded by
Ralph Abernathy
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
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)
Edythe Scott Bagley
(sister-in-law)
Education
Morehouse College
BA
Crozer Theological Seminary
BDiv
Boston University
PhD
Occupation
Baptist minister
activist
leader
author
Monuments
Full list
Movement
Civil rights
peace
anti-war
Awards
Nobel Peace Prize
(1964)
Presidential Medal of Freedom
posthumous
, 1977)
Congressional Gold Medal
(posthumous, 2004)
Signature
Nickname
MLK
Martin Luther King Jr.'s voice
King discussing the
nomination
of
Barry Goldwater
Recorded August 1964
This article is part of
a series about
Martin Luther King Jr.
Sermons and speeches
Give Us the Ballot
Letter from Birmingham Jail
I Have a Dream
How Long, Not Long
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
The Other America
I've Been to the Mountaintop
Campaigns
Montgomery bus boycott
Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
Youth March for Integrated Schools
Albany Movement
Birmingham campaign
Detroit Walk to Freedom
March on Washington
St. Augustine movement
Selma to Montgomery marches
Chicago Open Housing Movement
March Against Fear
Memphis sanitation strike
Poor People's Campaign
Assassination
Perpetrator
Conspiracy theories
Riots
Robert F. Kennedy's speech
On the Mindless Menace of Violence
Funeral
Alleged conspirator
trial
Legacy
Memorials
American federal holiday
passage
National memorial
National Historical Park
Eponymous streets
Martin Luther King Jr.
(born
Michael King Jr.
; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American
civil rights
activist and
Baptist
minister who was a prominent leader of the
civil rights movement
from 1955 until
his assassination
in 1968. He advanced civil rights for
people of color
in the United States through the use of
nonviolent resistance
and
civil disobedience
against
Jim Crow laws
and other forms of legalized
discrimination
, which most commonly affected
African Americans
Black church
leader, King participated in and led marches for the
right to vote
desegregation
labor rights
, and other civil rights.
He oversaw the 1955
Montgomery bus boycott
and was the first president of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC), leading the unsuccessful
Albany Movement
in
Albany, Georgia
, and helping organize 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, and helped organize two of the three
Selma to Montgomery marches
during the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. There were dramatic standoffs with
segregationist
authorities, who often responded violently.
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
King was jailed several times.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) director
J. Edgar Hoover
considered King a radical and made him an object of
COINTELPRO
from 1963. 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.
King won the
1964 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
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
was convicted of the assassination, though it remains
the subject of conspiracy theories
. King's death led to
riots in US cities
. King was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 1977 and
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.
Early life and education
Birth
Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in
Atlanta
, the second of three children of
Michael King
and
Alberta King
née
Williams
).
Alberta's father, Adam Daniel Williams,
was a minister in rural
Georgia
, moved to Atlanta in 1893,
and became pastor of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church
in the following year.
Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks.
Michael Sr. was born to
sharecroppers
James Albert and Delia King of
Stockbridge, Georgia
he was likely of
Mende
Sierra Leone
) descent.
10
11
He enrolled in
Morehouse College
to study for entry to the ministry.
12
Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating in 1920, and married on November 25, 1926.
13
14
Until Jennie's death in 1941, their home was on the second floor of Alberta's parents' home, where King was born.
15
13
14
16
Michael Jr. had an older sister,
Christine King Farris
, and a younger brother,
Alfred Daniel King
17
Shortly after marrying Alberta, King Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church.
14
Senior pastor Williams died in the spring of 1931
14
and that fall King Sr. took the role. With support from his wife, he raised attendance from six hundred to several thousand.
14
18
In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; one of the stops being Berlin for the Fifth Congress of the
Baptist World Alliance
(BWA).
19
He also visited sites in
Germany
that are associated with the
Reformation
leader
Martin Luther
19
In reaction to the rise of
Nazism
, the Congress of the BWA adopted, in August 1934, a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any part of the world."
20
After returning home in August 1934, Michael Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King and his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.
19
21
13
Early childhood
King's childhood home in
Atlanta
At his childhood home, Martin Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the
Bible
as instructed by their father.
23
After dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to as "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible.
23
Martin Jr.'s father regularly used
whippings
to discipline his children,
24
sometimes having them whip each other.
24
Martin Sr. later remarked, "[Martin Jr.] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the tears would run down, and he'd never cry."
25
Once, when Martin Jr. witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked A.D. unconscious with it.
24
26
When Martin Jr. and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit Jennie, causing her to fall unresponsive.
27
26
Martin Jr., believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted
suicide
by jumping from a second-story window,
28
26
but rose from the ground after hearing that she was alive.
28
Martin Jr. became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his home.
29
In September 1935, when the boys were about six years old, they started school.
29
30
King had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School,
29
31
while his playmate went to a separate school for white children only.
29
31
Soon afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored".
29
32
When King relayed this to his parents, they talked with him about the history of
slavery
and
racism in America
29
33
which King would later say made him "determined to hate every white person".
29
His parents instructed him that it was his
Christian
duty to love everyone.
33
Martin Jr. witnessed his father stand up against
segregation
and
discrimination
34
Once, when stopped by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. as "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man.
34
When Martin Jr's father took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed to sit in the back.
35
Martin Sr. refused, asserting "We'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy any shoes at all", before leaving the store with Martin Jr.
36
He told Martin Jr. afterward, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it."
36
In 1936, Martin Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in a
civil rights
march to the
city hall
in Atlanta to protest
voting rights
discrimination.
24
Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.
37
Martin Jr. memorized
hymns
and Bible verses by the time he was five years old.
28
Beginning at six years old, he attended church events with his mother and sang hymns while she played piano.
28
His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and More Like Jesus".
28
King later became a member of the junior choir in his church.
38
He enjoyed opera, and played the piano.
39
King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries.
26
He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of words to stop or avoid fights.
26
39
King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted throughout his life.
39
In 1939, King sang as a member of his church choir dressed as a
slave
for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film
Gone with the Wind
40
41
In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School for the
seventh grade
42
43
While there, King took
violin
and
piano
lessons and showed keen interest in history and
classes.
42
On May 18, 1941, when King had sneaked away from studying at home to watch a parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother.
37
After returning home, he learned she had a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital.
16
He took her death very hard and believed that his deception in going to see the parade may have been responsible for God taking her.
16
King again jumped out of a second-story window at his home but again survived.
16
25
26
His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been called home to God as part of God's plan.
16
44
Martin Jr. struggled with this.
16
Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta.
16
Adolescence
The high school that King attended was named after African-American educator
Booker T. Washington
As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure.
45
In 1942, when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the
Atlanta Journal
46
In the same year, King skipped the
ninth grade
and enrolled in
Booker T. Washington High School
, where he maintained a B-plus average.
44
47
The high school was the only one in the city for African-American students.
14
Martin Jr. was brought up in a
Baptist
home; as he entered adolescence he began to question the
literalist
teachings preached at his father's church.
44
48
At the age of 13, he denied the
bodily resurrection of Jesus
during
Sunday school
49
48
Martin Jr. said that he found himself unable to identify with the emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction from religion.
50
48
He later said of this point in his life, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."
51
49
48
In high school, Martin Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into an orotund
baritone
52
47
He joined the school's debate team.
52
47
King continued to be most drawn to history and
47
and chose English and
sociology
as his main subjects.
53
King maintained an abundant
vocabulary
47
However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with spelling, while King assisted her with math.
47
King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing polished
patent leather
shoes and
tweed
suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends.
54
55
56
57
He liked flirting with girls and dancing.
56
55
58
His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town."
55
On April 13, 1944, in his
junior year
, King gave his first public speech during an
oratorical contest
59
55
60
61
In his speech he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."
62
59
King was selected as the winner of the contest.
59
55
On the ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that white passengers could sit.
55
63
The driver of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch".
55
King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law if he did not.
63
As all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rest of the way to Atlanta.
55
Later King wrote of the incident: "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."
63
Morehouse College
During King's junior year in high school,
Morehouse College
—an all-male
historically black college
that King's father and maternal grandfather had attended
64
65
—began accepting high school juniors who passed the
entrance examination
55
66
63
As
World War II
was underway, many black college students had been enlisted,
55
66
so the university aimed to increase their enrollment by allowing juniors to apply.
55
66
63
In 1944, aged 15, King passed the examination and was enrolled at the university that autumn.
67
In the summer before King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College students to work in
Simsbury, Connecticut
, at the
tobacco farm
of Cullman Brothers Tobacco.
68
69
This was King's first trip into the
integrated
north.
70
71
In a June 1944 letter to his father, King wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our way here we saw some things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit anywhere we want to."
70
The farm had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages towards the university's tuition, housing, and fees.
68
69
On weekdays King and the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco from 7:00 am to at least 5:00 pm, enduring temperatures above 100
°F
, to earn roughly USD$4 per day.
69
70
On Friday evenings, the students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, and on Saturdays they would travel to
Hartford, Connecticut
, to see theatre performances, shop, and eat in restaurants.
69
71
On Sundays, they attended church services in Hartford at a church filled with white congregants.
69
King wrote to his parents about the lack of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites go to the same church".
69
72
70
At Morehouse, King played freshman football.
citation needed
The summer before his last year there, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the
ministry
. He would later credit the college's president,
Baptist
minister
Benjamin Mays
, with being his "spiritual mentor".
73
King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest."
74
King graduated from Morehouse with a
Bachelor of Arts
in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen.
75
Religious education
King received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from
Crozer Theological Seminary
in 1951 (pictured in 2009).
See also:
Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues
King enrolled in
Crozer Theological Seminary
in
Upland, Pennsylvania
76
77
and took several courses at the
University of Pennsylvania
78
79
At Crozer, King was elected president of the student body.
80
At Penn, King took courses with
William Fontaine
, Penn's first African-American professor, and
Elizabeth F. Flower
, a professor of philosophy.
81
King's father supported his decision to continue his education and made arrangements for King to work with
J. Pius Barbour
, a family friend and Crozer alumnus who pastored at
Calvary Baptist Church
in nearby
Chester, Pennsylvania
82
King became known as one of the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with
William Augustus Jones Jr.
and
Samuel D. Proctor
, who both went on to become well-known preachers.
83
King reproved another student for keeping beer in his room once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, he was interested in
Walter Rauschenbusch
's "social gospel".
80
In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with Betty Moitz,
84
the white daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in the cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as well as King's father,
84
advised against it, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in the South. King tearfully told a friend that he could not endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered."
80
Other friends, including
Harry Belafonte
, said Betty had been "the love of King's life."
84
King graduated with a
Bachelor of Divinity
in 1951.
76
He applied to the
University of Edinburgh
for a doctorate in the
School of Divinity
but ultimately chose Boston instead.
85
In 1951, King began doctoral studies in
systematic theology
at
Boston University
86
and worked as an assistant minister at Boston's historic
Twelfth Baptist Church
with William Hunter Hester. Hester was an old friend of King's father and was an important influence on King.
87
In Boston, King befriended a small cadre of local ministers his age, and sometimes guest pastored at their churches, including
Michael E. Haynes
, associate pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury. The young men often held bull sessions in their apartments, discussing theology, sermon style, and social issues.
citation needed
At the age of 25 in 1954, King was
called
as pastor of the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
in
Montgomery, Alabama
88
King received his PhD on June 5, 1955, with a
dissertation
(initially supervised by
Edgar S. Brightman
and, upon the latter's death, by
Lotan Harold DeWolf
) titled
A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of
Paul Tillich
and
Henry Nelson Wieman
89
86
An academic inquiry in October 1991 concluded that portions of his doctoral dissertation were
plagiarisms
and he had acted improperly. However,
"[d]espite
its finding, the committee said that 'no thought should be given to the revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree,' an action that the panel said would serve no purpose."
90
86
91
The committee found that the dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship." A letter is now attached to the copy of King's dissertation in the university library, noting that numerous passages were included without the appropriate quotations and citations of sources.
92
Significant debate exists on how to interpret King's plagiarism.
93
Marriage and family
King is welcomed with a kiss from his wife,
Coretta Scott King
, after leaving court in Montgomery, AL, on March 22, 1956
King with his wife, Coretta Scott King, and daughter,
Yolanda Denise King
, in 1956
While studying at Boston University, King asked a friend from Atlanta named Mary Powell, a student at the
New England Conservatory of Music
, if she knew any nice Southern girls. Powell spoke to fellow student
Coretta Scott
; Scott was not interested in dating preachers but eventually agreed to allow King to telephone her based on Powell's description and vouching. On their first call, King told Scott, "I am like Napoleon at Waterloo before your charms," to which she replied: "You haven't even met me."
citation needed
King married Scott on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house, in
Heiberger, Alabama
94
They had four children:
Yolanda King
(1955–2007),
Martin Luther King III
(b. 1957),
Dexter Scott King
(1961–2024), and
Bernice King
(b. 1963).
95
King limited Coretta's role in the civil rights movement, expecting her to be a housewife and mother.
96
Activism and organizational leadership
Mary's Cafe Sit-In, 1950
On Sunday, June 11, 1950, King, classmate at Crozer Seminary and housemate Walter McCall, and their dates Doris Wilson and Pearl Smith attended church services in Merchantville. Afterwards they stopped at tavern Mary's Cafe in Maple Shade for beers. The foursome were left waiting without anyone approaching them for service, not unexpectedly. A friend's father and King and McCall's landlord Jesthroe Hunt had warned them Black people were not welcome at Mary's. King replied to the effect of maybe they needed to go, so they could start to go anywhere they wanted.
97
The seminarians had opted for Mary's Cafe with full knowledge of its reputation.
98
After waiting without service, McCall approached the bar.
McCall asked bartender and Mary's Cafe owner Ernest Nichols for packaged goods (beer for takeaway). Nichols refused, explaining he could not sell packaged goods on Sundays or any day after 10pm, by law. McCall then requested 4 glasses of beer to which Nichols answered "no beer, Mr! Today is Sunday”.
99
Nichols would claim they sought him to violate New Jersey's
blue law
(a restriction common in South Jersey and Pennsylvania as a remnant of the influence of their
Quakers
roots).
99
McCall requested ginger ales as non-alcoholic beverages were not subject to the blue law. Nichols refused the group even ginger ales and reportedly stated "the best thing would be for you to leave".
100
King and company met refusal with refusal, and remained in their seats as was their right per New Jersey's 1945 anti-discrimination law, which guaranteed non-discrimination by race in public accommodations. Nichols stomped out and returned with a gun standing outside firing into the air reportedly shouting "I'd kill for less".
100
Fearing for their lives, the four activists ran from the tavern. The group went to the Maple Shade Police Department where officers refused to file their complaint. King and McCall contacted
Ulysses Simpson Wiggins
then President of the Camden County Branch
NAACP
, who helped them successfully file a police report. The
New York Times
confirms "The complaint was against Ernest Nichols, a white tavern owner in Maple Shade, N.J., and said that he had refused to serve the black students and their dates in June 1950, and had threatened them by firing a gun in the air. The complaint was signed by the two students. One of the signatures, in a loopy, slanted cursive, reads 'M. L. King Jr.'"
101
Nichols was charged with disorderly conduct and violation of the anti-discrimination law. He was found guilty and fined $50, however the racial discrimination count was dismissed. In a statement submitted "in the spirit of assisting the Prosecutor"
99
Nichol's attorney noted:
Mr. Nichols claims that this act was not intended as a threat to his colored patrons. The colored patrons, on the other hand, while they admit that the gun was not pointed at them or any of them, seemed to think that it was a threat. Mr. Nichols on the other hand states that he has been held up before and he wanted to alert his watchdog who was somewhere outside on the tavern grounds.
— Statement on Behalf of Ernest Nichols, State of New Jersey vs. Ernest Nichols, by W. Thomas McGann
99
King cited the incident saying it was “a formative step” in his “commitment to a more just society.”
100
The Mary's Cafe
sit-in
demonstrated the power of
non-violent
civil disobedience
. Nichols' reaction in retrieving a weapon and discharging it to scare the group, or summon his guard dog, to young people's refusal to leave unserved, showed King the potency of such tactics. This sit-in is believed to be the first deployment of the non-violence and civil disobedience tactics which would distinguish King's activism and legacy.
The Mary's Cafe sit-in occurred six months prior to Mordecai Johnson's Lecture on Gandi at the
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia
on November 19, 1950 where King would be formally exposed to these tactics. At that lecture and in discussions with Dr. Johnson at the Fellowship House, Dr. King would be inspired and galvanized by how
Mahatma Gandhi
integrated
Henry David Thoreau
's theory of
Nonviolent resistance
and civil disobedience tactics.
102
Patrick Duff, a South Jersey resident, discovered the police report detailing the events at Mary's after searching the archive at
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
101
Montgomery bus boycott, 1955
Main articles:
Montgomery bus boycott
and
Jim Crow laws § Public arena
The
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
was influential in the Montgomery African-American community. As the church's pastor, King became known for his oratorical preaching in Montgomery and surrounding region.
103
In March 1955,
Claudette Colvin
—a black schoolgirl in Montgomery—refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in violation of
Jim Crow laws
, local laws in the Southern US that enforced
racial segregation
104
On December 1, 1955,
Rosa Parks
was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus.
105
These incidents led to the
Montgomery bus boycott
, which was urged and planned by
Edgar Nixon
and led by King.
106
The other ministers asked him to take a leadership role because his relative newness to community leadership made it easier for him to speak out. King was hesitant but decided to do so if no one else wanted it.
107
The boycott lasted for 385 days,
108
and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.
109
King was arrested for traveling 30 mph in a 25 mph zone
110
and jailed, which drew the attention of national media, and increased King's public stature. The controversy ended when the US District Court issued a ruling in
Browder v. Gayle
that prohibited racial segregation on Montgomery public buses.
111
107
King first rose to prominence in the civil rights movement while minister of
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama.
King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.
112
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
In 1957, King, along with Christian ministers
Ralph Abernathy
Fred Shuttlesworth
, and
Joseph Lowery
, as well as
Bayard Rustin
and other activists founded the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC). The group was created to harness the
moral authority
and organizing power of black churches to conduct nonviolent protests in the service of civil rights reform. The group was inspired by the crusades of evangelist
Billy Graham
, who befriended King,
113
as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by King allies
Stanley Levison
and
Ella Baker
114
King led the SCLC until his death.
115
The SCLC's 1957
Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
was the first time King addressed a national audience.
116
King in November 1962
Harry Wachtel
joined King's legal advisor
Clarence B. Jones
in defending four ministers of the SCLC in the libel case
Abernathy et al. v. Sullivan
; the case was litigated about the newspaper advertisement "
Heed Their Rising Voices
". Wachtel founded a tax-exempt fund to cover the suit's expenses and assist the civil rights movement through more effective fundraising. King served as honorary president of this organization, named the "Gandhi Society for Human Rights". In 1962, King and the Gandhi Society produced a document that called on
President Kennedy
to issue an executive order to deliver a blow for civil rights as a kind of
Second Emancipation Proclamation
. Kennedy did not execute the order.
117
The
FBI
, under written directive from Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy
, began
tapping
King's telephone line in the fall of 1963.
118
Kennedy was concerned that public allegations of communists in the SCLC would derail the administration's civil rights initiatives. He warned King to discontinue these associations and felt compelled to issue the directive that authorized the FBI to wiretap King and other SCLC leaders.
119
FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover
feared the civil rights movement and investigated the allegations of communist infiltration. When no evidence emerged to support this, the FBI used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years, as part of its
COINTELPRO
program, in attempts to force King out of his leadership position.
King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as
Jim Crow laws
would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced most Americans that the civil rights movement was the most important political issue in the early 1960s.
120
121
King organized and led marches for blacks' right to
vote
desegregation
labor rights
, and other basic civil rights.
Most of these rights were successfully enacted into law with the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
and the 1965
Voting Rights Act
122
123
The SCLC used tactics of nonviolent protest with success, by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent.
Survived knife attack, 1958
On September 20, 1958, King was signing copies of his book
Stride Toward Freedom
in Blumstein's department store in Harlem
124
when
Izola Curry
—a mentally ill black woman who thought King was conspiring against her with communists—stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, which nearly impinged on the aorta. King received first aid by police officers
Al Howard
and Philip Romano.
125
King underwent surgery by
Aubre de Lambert Maynard
Emil Naclerio
and
John W. V. Cordice
; he remained hospitalized for weeks. Curry was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
126
127
Accepting his doctor's advice, King, along with Coretta and
Alabama State College
history professor
Lawrence D. Reddick
traveled to Europe, India and the Middle East from February to March 1959
to recuperate. Upon returning to Montgomery, King agreed with the SCLC board to fire executive director John Lee Tilley, but then hired co-founder
Bayard Rustin
to manage press relations.
Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the 1960 elections
King led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and later became co-pastor with his father at
Ebenezer Baptist Church
in Atlanta (pulpit and sanctuary pictured).
In December 1959, after being based in Montgomery for five years, King announced his return to Atlanta at the request of the SCLC.
128
In Atlanta, King served until his death as co-pastor with his father at the
Ebenezer Baptist Church
. Georgia governor
Ernest Vandiver
expressed open hostility towards King's return. He claimed that "wherever M. L. King Jr., has been there has followed in his wake a wave of crimes", and vowed to keep King under surveillance.
129
On May 4, 1960, King drove writer
Lillian Smith
to
Emory University
when police stopped them. King was cited for "driving without a license" because he had not yet been issued a Georgia license. King's Alabama license was still valid, and Georgia law did not mandate any time limit for issuing a local license.
130
King paid a fine but was unaware his lawyer agreed to a plea deal that included
probation
Meanwhile, the
Atlanta Student Movement
had been acting to desegregate businesses and public spaces, organizing the
Atlanta sit-ins
from March 1960 onwards. In August the movement asked King to participate in a mass October sit-in, timed to highlight how
1960's Presidential election
campaigns had ignored civil rights. The coordinated day of action took place on October 19. King participated in a sit-in at the restaurant inside
Rich's
, Atlanta's largest department store, and was among the many arrested. The authorities released everyone over the next few days, except King. Invoking his probationary plea deal, Judge
J. Oscar Mitchell
sentenced King on October 25 to four months of hard labor. Before dawn the next day, King was transported to
Georgia State Prison
131
The arrest and harsh sentence drew nationwide attention. Many feared for King's safety, as he started a sentence with people convicted of violent crimes, many white and hostile to his activism.
132
Presidential candidates were asked to weigh in, at a time when parties were courting the support of Southern Whites and their political leadership including Governor Vandiver. Nixon, with whom King had a closer relationship before, declined to make a statement despite a visit from
Jackie Robinson
requesting his intervention. Nixon's opponent
John F. Kennedy
called the governor, enlisted his brother
Robert
to exert more pressure on state authorities, and, at the request of
Sargent Shriver
, called King's wife to offer his help. The pressure from Kennedy and others proved effective, and King was released two days later. King's father decided to openly endorse Kennedy's candidacy for the November 8 election which he narrowly won.
133
After the October 19 sit-ins and following unrest, a 30-day truce was declared in Atlanta for desegregation negotiations. However, negotiations failed and sit-ins and boycotts resumed for several months. On March 7, 1961, a group of Black elders including King notified student leaders that a deal had been reached: the city's lunch counters would desegregate in fall 1961, in conjunction with the court-mandated desegregation of schools.
134
135
Many students were disappointed at the compromise. In a meeting on March 10 at Warren Memorial Methodist Church, the audience was hostile and frustrated. King gave an impassioned speech calling participants to resist the "cancerous disease of disunity", helping to calm tensions.
136
Albany Movement, 1961
Main article:
Albany Movement
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in
Albany, Georgia
, in November 1961. In December, King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a nonviolent attack on segregation in the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel."
137
The following day he was swept up in a
mass arrest
of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. According to King, "that agreement was dishonored and violated by the city" after he left.
137
King returned in July 1962 and was given the option of 45 days in jail or a $178 fine (equivalent to $1,900 in 2025); he chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Police Chief Laurie Pritchett discreetly arranged for King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. "We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail."
138
It was later acknowledged by the King Center that
Billy Graham
was the one who bailed King out.
139
After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote nonviolence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts.
140
Though the Albany effort proved a key lesson in tactics for King and the civil rights movement,
141
the national media was highly critical of King's role in the defeat, and the SCLC's lack of results contributed to a growing gulf between the organization and the more radical
SNCC
. After Albany, King sought to choose engagements for the SCLC in which he could control the circumstances, rather than entering into pre-existing situations.
142
Birmingham campaign, 1963
Main article:
Birmingham campaign
King was arrested in 1963 for protesting the treatment of black people in Birmingham.
143
Vice President
Lyndon B. Johnson
and Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy
with King,
Benjamin Mays
, and other civil rights leaders, June 22, 1963
In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in
Birmingham, Alabama
. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by
Wyatt Tee Walker
. Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and sit-ins, openly violating laws that they considered unjust.
King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."
144
The campaign's early volunteers did not succeed in shutting down the city, or in drawing media attention to the police's actions. Over the concerns of an uncertain King, SCLC strategist
James Bevel
changed the course of the campaign by recruiting children and young adults to join the demonstrations.
145
Newsweek
called this strategy a
Children's Crusade
146
147
The Birmingham Police Department, led by
Eugene "Bull" Connor
, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs against protesters, including children. Footage of the police response was broadcast on national television, shocking many white Americans and consolidating black Americans behind the movement.
148
Not all demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm's way. But the campaign was a success: Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow" signs came down, and public places became more open to blacks. King's reputation improved immensely.
146
King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest
149
out of 29.
150
From his cell, he composed the now-famous "
Letter from Birmingham Jail
" that responds to
calls to pursue legal channels for social change
. The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern
political prisoner
".
151
King argues that the crisis of racism is too urgent, and the current system too entrenched: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
152
He points out that the
Boston Tea Party
, a celebrated act of rebellion in the American colonies, was illegal civil disobedience, and that, conversely, "everything
Adolf Hitler
did in Germany was 'legal'."
152
Walter Reuther
, president of the
United Auto Workers
, arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.
153
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
— Martin Luther King Jr.
152
March on Washington, 1963
Main article:
March on Washington
Leaders of the March on Washington posing in front of the Lincoln Memorial
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963)
King, representing the
SCLC
, was among the leaders of the "
Big Six
" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
, which took place on August 28, 1963. The other leaders and organizations comprising the Big Six were
Roy Wilkins
from the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Whitney Young
National Urban League
A. Philip Randolph
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
John Lewis
SNCC
; and
James L. Farmer Jr.
Congress of Racial Equality
154
Bayard Rustin
's open homosexuality, support of
socialism
, and former ties to the
Communist Party USA
caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself,
155
which King agreed to do.
156
However, he did collaborate in the 1963 March on Washington, for which Rustin was the primary organizer.
157
158
For King, this role was another which courted controversy, since he was a key figure who acceded to the wishes of President Kennedy in changing the focus of the march.
159
160
Kennedy initially opposed the march outright, because he was concerned it would negatively impact the drive for passage of
civil rights legislation
. However, the organizers were firm the march would proceed.
161
With the march going forward, the Kennedys decided it was important to ensure its success. President Kennedy was concerned the turnout would be less than 100,000 and enlisted the aid of additional church leaders and
Walter Reuther
, president of the
United Automobile Workers
, to help mobilize demonstrators.
162
The March
, a 1964 documentary film produced by the
United States Information Agency
. King's speech has been redacted from this video because of the
copyright held by King's estate
The march originally was planned to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern US and place organizers' concerns and grievances squarely before the seat of power in the capital. Organizers intended to denounce the federal government for its failure to safeguard the civil rights and physical safety of civil rights workers and blacks. The group acquiesced to presidential pressure, and the event ultimately took on a less strident tone.
163
As a result, some civil rights activists felt it presented an inaccurate, sanitized pageant of racial harmony; Malcolm X called it the "Farce on Washington", and the Nation of Islam forbade its members from attending.
163
164
King gave his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream", before the
Lincoln Memorial
during the 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
I Have a Dream
30-second sample from "
I Have a Dream
" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. at the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
on August 28, 1963
Problems playing this file? See
media help
The march made specific demands: an end to racial segregation in public schools; meaningful civil rights legislation, including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment; protection of civil rights workers from police brutality; a $2
minimum wage
for all workers (equivalent to $21 in 2025); and self-government for Washington, D.C., then governed by congressional committee.
165
166
167
Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success.
168
More than a quarter of a million people of diverse ethnicities attended, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the
National Mall
. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington, D.C.'s history.
168
King delivered a 17-minute speech, later known as "
I Have a Dream
". In the speech's most famous passage – in which he departed from his prepared text, possibly at the prompting of
Mahalia Jackson
, who shouted, "Tell them about the dream!"
169
170
– King said:
171
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
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 one day on the red hills of
Georgia
the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of
Mississippi
, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
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.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with
its governor
having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
"I Have a Dream" came to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of oratory.
172
The March, and especially King's speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
173
174
St. Augustine, Florida, 1964
Main article:
St. Augustine movement
In March 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with Robert Hayling's then-controversial movement in St. Augustine, Florida. Hayling's group had been affiliated with the NAACP but was forced out of the organization for advocating armed self-defense alongside nonviolent tactics. However, the pacifist SCLC accepted them.
175
176
King and the SCLC worked to bring white Northern activists to
St. Augustine
, including a delegation of rabbis and the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts, all of whom were arrested.
177
178
During June, the movement marched nightly through the city, "often facing counter demonstrations by the Klan, and provoking violence that garnered national media attention." Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed. During this movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.
179
Biddeford, Maine, 1964
On May 7, 1964, King spoke at
Saint Francis College
's "The Negro and the Quest for Identity", in
Biddeford, Maine
. This was a symposium that brought together many civil rights leaders.
180
181
King spoke about how "We must get rid of the idea of superior and inferior races," through nonviolent tactics.
182
New York City, 1964
King at a press conference in March 1964
On February 6, 1964, King delivered the inaugural speech
183
of a lecture series initiated at the
New School
called "The American Race Crisis". In his remarks, King referred to a conversation he had recently had with
Jawaharlal Nehru
in which he compared the sad condition of many African Americans to that of India's
untouchables
184
In his March 18, 1964, interview with
Robert Penn Warren
, King compared his activism to his father's, citing his training in non-violence as a key difference. He also discusses the next phase of the civil rights movement and integration.
185
Scripto strike in Atlanta, 1964
Main article:
1964–1965 Scripto strike
Starting in November 1964, King supported a
labor strike
by several hundred workers at the
Scripto
factory in Atlanta, just a few blocks from Ebenezer Baptist.
186
Many of the strikers were congregants of his church, and the strike was supported by other civil rights leaders.
186
King helped elevate the labor dispute from a local to nationally known event and led the SCLC to organize a nationwide boycott of Scripto products.
186
However, as the strike stretched into December, King, who was wanting to focus more on a civil rights campaign in
Selma, Alabama
, began to negotiate in secret with Scripto's president
Carl Singer
and eventually brokered a deal where the SCLC would call off their boycott in exchange for the company giving the striking employees their Christmas bonuses.
186
King's involvement in the strike ended on December 24 and a contract between the company and union was signed on January 9.
186
Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965
Main article:
Selma to Montgomery marches
The civil rights
march from Selma to Montgomery
, Alabama, in 1965
In December 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, where the SNCC had been working on voter registration for several months.
187
A local judge issued an injunction that barred any gathering of three or more people affiliated with the SNCC, SCLC, DCVL, or any of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil rights activity until King defied it by speaking at
Brown Chapel
on January 2, 1965.
188
During the 1965 march to
Montgomery, Alabama
, violence by state police and others against the peaceful marchers resulted in much publicity, which made racism in Alabama visible nationwide.
Acting on
James Bevel
's call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, Bevel and other SCLC members, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, at which King was not present, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has become known as
Bloody Sunday
and was a turning point in the effort to gain public support for the civil rights movement. It was the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King and Bevel's nonviolence strategy.
51
On March 5, King met with officials in the
Johnson Administration
to request an
injunction
against any prosecution of the demonstrators. He did not attend the march due to church duties, but later wrote, "If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did, I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line."
189
Footage of
police brutality
against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused public outrage.
190
King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, King led marchers on March 9 to the
Edmund Pettus Bridge
in Selma, then held a prayer session before turning the marchers around and asking them to disperse so as not to violate the court order. The unexpected ending of this second march aroused the surprise and anger of many within the local movement.
191
The march finally went ahead fully on March 25, 1965.
192
193
At the conclusion of the march on the steps of the
state capitol
, King delivered a speech that became known as "
How Long, Not Long
". King stated that equal rights for African Americans could not be far away, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and "you shall reap what you sow".
194
195
196
Chicago open housing movement, 1966
Main article:
Chicago Freedom Movement
King standing behind President Johnson as he signs the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
In 1966, after several successes in the south, King, Bevel, and others in the civil rights organizations took the movement to the North. King and Ralph Abernathy, both from the middle class, moved into a building at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue, in the slums of
North Lawndale
197
on Chicago's West Side, as an educational experience and to demonstrate their support and empathy for the poor.
198
The SCLC formed a coalition with Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), an organization founded by
Albert Raby
, and the combined organizations' efforts were fostered under the aegis of the
Chicago Freedom Movement
199
During that spring, several white couple/black couple tests of real estate offices uncovered
racial steering
, discriminatory processing of housing requests by couples who were exact matches in income and background.
200
Larger marches were planned and executed: in Bogan,
Belmont Cragin
Jefferson Park
Evergreen Park
Gage Park
Marquette Park
, and others.
199
201
202
President
Lyndon B. Johnson
meeting with King in the
White House Cabinet Room
in 1966
King later stated and Abernathy wrote that the movement received a worse reception in Chicago than in the South. Marches, especially the one through Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, were met by thrown bottles and screaming throngs. Rioting seemed very possible.
203
204
King's beliefs militated against his staging a violent event, and he negotiated an agreement with Mayor
Richard J. Daley
to cancel a march to avoid the violence he feared would result.
205
King was hit by a brick during one march, but continued to lead marches in the face of personal danger.
206
When King and his allies returned to the South, they left
Jesse Jackson
, a seminary student who had previously joined the movement in the South, in charge of their organization.
207
Jackson continued their struggle for civil rights by organizing the
Operation Breadbasket
movement that targeted chain stores that did not deal fairly with blacks.
208
A 1967
CIA
document declassified in 2017 downplayed King's role in the "black militant situation" in Chicago, with a source stating that King "sought at least constructive, positive projects."
209
Opposition to the Vietnam War
See also:
Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War
The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
210
We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together… you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
211
King was long opposed to
American involvement in the Vietnam War
212
but at first avoided the topic in speeches to avoid interference with civil rights goals that criticism of President Johnson's policies might have created.
212
At the urging of SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the
Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of
Muhammad Ali
213
King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war, as opposition was growing among the public.
212
During an April 1967 appearance at the New York City
Riverside Church
, King delivered a speech titled "
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
".
214
He spoke against America's role in the war, arguing the US was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony"
215
and calling the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today".
216
He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change:
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."
217
King opposed the war because it took resources away
from social welfare at home
: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
217
He stated that
North Vietnam
"did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands",
218
and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children".
219
King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms.
220
King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies including Johnson,
Billy Graham
, union leaders, and powerful publishers.
221
222
223
"The press is being stacked against me", King said,
224
complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children".
225
Life
magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for
Radio Hanoi
",
217
and
The Washington Post
declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."
225
226
King speaking to an anti-Vietnam war rally at the
University of Minnesota
in St. Paul on April 27, 1967
The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive
Highlander Research and Education Center
, with which he was affiliated.
227
228
King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the American political and economic situation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct injustice.
229
230
He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to
communism
, but in private sometimes spoke of his support for
democratic socialism
231
232
King stated in "Beyond Vietnam" that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar ... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
233
King quoted a US official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."
233
King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said the US should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the
Third World
rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution.
233
King's stance on Vietnam encouraged
Allard K. Lowenstein
William Sloane Coffin
and
Norman Thomas
, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the
1968 presidential election
. King contemplated but decided against this as he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited to activism.
234
On April 15, 1967, King spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the UN. The march was organized by the
Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
under chairman James Bevel. At the UN King brought up issues of civil rights and the draft:
I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.
235
Seeing an opportunity to unite civil rights and anti-war activists,
213
Bevel convinced King to become even more active in the anti-war effort.
213
Despite his growing public opposition to the war, King was not fond of the
hippie culture
developed from the anti-war movement.
236
In his 1967
Massey Lecture
, King stated:
The importance of the hippies is not in their unconventional behavior, but in the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people, in turning to a flight from reality, are expressing a profoundly discrediting view on the society they emerge from.
236
On January 13, 1968, King called for a large march on Washington against "one of history's most cruel and senseless wars":
237
238
We need to make clear in this political year, to congressmen on both sides of the aisle and to the president of the United States, that we will no longer tolerate, we will no longer vote for men who continue to see the killings of Vietnamese and Americans as the best way of advancing the goals of freedom and self-determination in Southeast Asia.
237
238
Correspondence with Thích Nhất Hạnh
Thích Nhất Hạnh
was an influential Vietnamese
Buddhist
who wrote a letter to King in 1965 entitled: "In Search of the Enemy of Man". It was during his 1966 stay in the US that Nhất Hạnh met with King and urged him to publicly denounce the war.
239
On 4 April 1967, King gave a speech in New York City, his first to publicly question U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
240
Later that year, King nominated Nhất Hạnh for the
Nobel Peace Prize
. In his nomination, King said, "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of [this prize] than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to
ecumenism
, to world brotherhood, to humanity".
241
Poor People's Campaign, 1968
Main article:
Poor People's Campaign
A shantytown established in Washington, D.C. to protest economic conditions as a part of the
Poor People's Campaign
In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the "
Poor People's Campaign
" to address economic justice. King traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent
civil disobedience
at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights".
242
243
The campaign was preceded by King's final book,
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
which laid out his view of how to address social issues and poverty. King quoted from
Henry George
's book
Progress and Poverty
, particularly in support of a
guaranteed basic income
244
245
246
The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the U.S.
King and the SCLC called on the government to invest in rebuilding America's cities. He felt that Congress had shown "hostility to the poor" by spending "military funds with alacrity and generosity". He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided "poverty funds with miserliness".
243
His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism", and argued that "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."
247
The Poor People's Campaign was controversial even within the civil rights movement. Rustin resigned from the march, stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, that its demands were unrealizable, and that he thought that these campaigns would accelerate repression on the poor and the black.
248
Global policy
King was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a
world constitution
249
250
As a result, in 1968 a
World Constituent Assembly
convened to draft and adopt the
Constitution for the Federation of Earth
251
Assassination and aftermath
Main article:
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, is now the site of the
National Civil Rights Museum
I've Been to the Mountaintop
Final 30 seconds of "
I've Been to the Mountaintop
" speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
Problems playing this file? See
media help
On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black
sanitation workers
, who were represented by
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME) Local 1733. The workers had been
on strike
since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.
252
253
254
On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his "
I've Been to the Mountaintop
" address at
Mason Temple
. King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.
255
In reference to the bomb threat, King said:
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've 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. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
256
King was booked in Room 306 at the
Lorraine Motel
in Memphis.
Ralph Abernathy
, who was present at the assassination, testified to the
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations
that King and his entourage stayed at Room 306 so often that it was known as the "King-Abernathy suite".
257
According to
Jesse Jackson
, who was present, King's last words were spoken to musician
Ben Branch
, who was scheduled to perform that night at an event King was attending: "Ben, make sure you play '
Take My Hand, Precious Lord
' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."
258
King was fatally shot by
James Earl Ray
at 6:01 p.m., Thursday, April 4, 1968, as he stood on the motel's second-floor balcony. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder.
259
260
Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the floor.
261
After emergency surgery, King died at
St. Joseph's Hospital
at 7:05 p.m.
262
According to biographer
Taylor Branch
, King's
autopsy
revealed that though only 39 years old, he "had the heart of a 60 year old", which Branch attributed to stress.
263
King was initially interred in South View Cemetery in South Atlanta, but in 1977, his remains were transferred to a tomb on the site of the
Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
264
Aftermath
Further information:
King assassination riots
The assassination led to
race riots
in
Washington, D.C.
Chicago
Baltimore
Louisville
Kansas City
, and dozens of other cities.
265
266
267
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was on his way to
Indianapolis
for a campaign rally when he was informed of King's death. He gave
a short, improvised speech
to the gathering of supporters informing them of the tragedy and urging them to continue King's ideal of nonviolence.
268
The following day, he delivered
a prepared response
in Cleveland.
269
James Farmer Jr.
and other civil rights leaders also called for non-violent action, while the more militant
Stokely Carmichael
called for a more forceful response.
270
The city of Memphis quickly settled the strike on terms favorable to the sanitation workers.
271
The plan to set up a
shantytown
in Washington, D.C., was carried out soon after the April 4 assassination. Criticism of King's plan was subdued in the wake of his death, and the SCLC received an unprecedented wave of donations to carry it out. The campaign officially began in Memphis, on May 2, at the hotel where King was murdered.
272
Thousands of demonstrators arrived on the
National Mall
and stayed for six weeks, establishing a camp they called "
Resurrection City
".
273
President Johnson tried to quell the riots by making telephone calls to civil rights leaders, mayors and governors and told politicians that they should warn the police against the unwarranted use of force.
267
"I'm not getting through," Johnson told his aides. "They're all holing up like generals in a dugout getting ready to watch a war."
267
Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for King.
274
Vice President
Hubert Humphrey
attended King's funeral on behalf of the President, as there were fears that Johnson's presence might incite protests and perhaps violence.
275
At his widow's request, King's last sermon at
Ebenezer Baptist Church
, given on February 4, 1968, was played at the funeral,
I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.
276
270
277
His friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", at the funeral.
278
The assassination helped to spur the enactment of the
Civil Rights Act of 1968
267
Two months after King's death,
James Earl Ray
—on the loose from a previous prison escape—was captured at
London Heathrow Airport
while trying to reach white-ruled
Rhodesia
on a false Canadian passport. He was using the alias Ramon George Sneyd.
279
Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder. He confessed on March 10, 1969, though he recanted this confession three days later.
280
On the advice of his attorney
Percy Foreman
, Ray pleaded guilty to avoid the possibility of the death penalty. He was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.
280
281
Ray later claimed a man he met in
Montreal
, Quebec, with the alias "Raoul" was involved and that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy.
282
283
He spent the remainder of his life attempting, unsuccessfully, to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had.
281
Ray died in 1998 at age 70.
284
Allegations of conspiracy
Main article:
Martin Luther King Jr. assassination conspiracy theories
The
sarcophagus
for Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King is within the
Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
in
Atlanta
, Georgia.
Ray's lawyers maintained he was a
scapegoat
similar to the way that John F. Kennedy's assassin
Lee Harvey Oswald
is seen by
conspiracy theorists
285
Supporters of this assertion said that Ray's confession was given under pressure and that he had been threatened with the death penalty.
281
286
They admitted that Ray was a thief and burglar, but claimed that he had no record of committing violent crimes with a weapon.
283
However, prison records in different U.S. cities have shown that he was incarcerated on numerous occasions for armed robbery.
287
In a 2008 interview with
CNN
, Jerry Ray, the younger brother of James Earl Ray, claimed that James was smart and was sometimes able to get away with armed robbery. "I never been with nobody as bold as he is," Jerry said. "He just walked in and put that gun on somebody, it was just like it's an everyday thing."
287
Those suspecting a conspiracy point to the two successive
ballistics
tests which proved that a rifle similar to Ray's
Remington
Gamemaster had been the murder weapon. Those tests did not implicate Ray's specific rifle.
281
288
Witnesses near King said that the shot came from another location, from behind thick shrubbery near the boarding house—which had been cut away in the days following the assassination—and not from the boarding house window.
289
However, Ray's fingerprints were found on various objects in the bathroom where it was determined the gunfire came from.
287
An examination of the rifle containing Ray's fingerprints determined that at least one shot was fired from the firearm at the time of the assassination.
287
In 1997, King's son Dexter Scott King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a
new trial
290
Two years later, King's widow Coretta Scott King and the couple's children, represented by
William F. Pepper
291
won a
wrongful death claim
against
Loyd Jowers
and "other unknown co-conspirators". Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's assassination. The jury found Jowers to be complicit in a conspiracy and that government agencies were party to the assassination.
292
293
In 2000, the
U.S. Department of Justice
completed the investigation into Jowers' claims but did not find evidence of conspiracy. The investigation report recommended no further investigation unless new reliable facts are presented.
294
A sister of Jowers admitted that he had fabricated the story so he could make $300,000 from selling the story, and she corroborated his story to get money to pay her income tax.
295
296
In 2002,
The New York Times
reported that a church minister, Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson, assassinated King. He stated, "It wasn't a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way." Wilson provided no evidence to back up his claims.
297
King researchers
David Garrow
and
Gerald Posner
disagreed with Pepper's claims that the government killed King.
298
In 2003, Pepper published a book about the investigation and trial, as well as his representation of James Earl Ray in his bid for a trial.
299
300
James Bevel also disputed the argument that Ray acted alone, stating, "There is no way a ten-cent white boy could develop a plan to kill a million-dollar black man."
301
In 2004, Jesse Jackson stated:
The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. And within our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without and the press attacks. ... I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I think the escape route for James Earl Ray.
302
On January 23 2025,
President Donald Trump
signed an Executive Order declassifying the records concerning the assassination.
303
Legacy
See also:
Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
and
List of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. statue over the west entrance of
Westminster Abbey
, installed in 1998
Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
South Africa
See also:
Black Consciousness Movement
King's legacy includes influences on the
Black Consciousness Movement
and civil rights movement in South Africa.
304
305
King's work was cited by, and served as, an inspiration for South African leader
Albert Luthuli
, who fought for racial justice in his country during
apartheid
and was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
306
United Kingdom
See also:
Northern Ireland civil rights movement
John Hume
, the former leader of the
Social Democratic and Labour Party
, cited King's legacy as quintessential to the
Northern Ireland civil rights movement
and the signing of the
Good Friday Agreement
, calling him "one of my great heroes of the century".
307
308
309
The Martin Luther King Fund and Foundation in the UK was set up as a charity
310
on December 30, 1969, after King's assassination and following a visit to the UK in 1969 by his widow,
Coretta King
. The Foundation's first chairman, Canon
John Collins
, stated that the Foundation was to be an active UK national campaign for racial equality, its work also to include community projects in areas of social need, and education.
311
International Personnel (IP), an employment agency, was formed in 1970 out of the foundation's base in
Balham
, to find employment for professionally qualified black people. In its first year, the agency placed ten percent of its applicants in jobs equal to their ability.
312
The Balham Training Scheme operated an evening school with lecturers in Typing, Shorthand, English and Math.
311
The foundation was removed from the Charity Commission list on November 18, 1996, as it had ceased to exist.
310
The Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Committee
313
still exists to honor King's legacy, as represented by his final visit to the UK to receive an honorary degree from
Newcastle University
in 1967.
314
315
Northumbria and Newcastle remain centers for the study of Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement. Inspired by King's vision, the committee undertakes a range of activities across the UK to "build cultures of peace".
In 2017, Newcastle University unveiled a bronze statue of King to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his honorary doctorate ceremony.
316
The Students Union also voted to rename their bar "Luther's".
317
United States
King has become an icon in the history of
American liberalism
and
American progressivism
318
His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the U.S. Just days after King's assassination, Congress passed the
Civil Rights Act of 1968
319
Title VIII of the Act, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibited discrimination in housing and housing-related transactions on the basis of race, religion, or national origin (later expanded to include sex, familial status, and disability). This legislation was seen as a tribute to King's struggle in his final years to combat residential discrimination.
319
The day following King's assassination, teacher
Jane Elliott
conducted her first "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise with her class of elementary school students to help them understand King's death as it related to racism.
320
King's wife Coretta Scott King was active in matters of social justice and civil rights until her death in 2006. The same year that King was assassinated, she established the
King Center in Atlanta, Georgia
, dedicated to preserving his legacy and the work of championing nonviolent conflict resolution and tolerance worldwide.
321
Their son, Dexter King, who died in 2024, served as the center's chairman until 2010.
322
323
In 2010,
Martin Luther King III
became president. In 2012, King's youngest child,
Bernice King
, became the CEO. Daughter Yolanda King, who died in 2007, was a motivational speaker, author and founder of Higher Ground Productions, an organization specializing in diversity training.
324
King family members disagree about his views about
LGBTQ
people. King's widow Coretta said that she believed her husband would have supported them.
325
However, King's youngest child, Bernice, said that he would have been opposed to
gay marriage
326
King himself, in a 1958 advice column written for
Ebony
, called homosexuality a "problem" and suggested that it could be resolved through
psychiatric treatment
327
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Main article:
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Beginning in 1971, cities and states established annual holidays to honor King.
328
On November 2, 1983, President
Ronald Reagan
signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
. Following President
George H. W. Bush
's 1992 proclamation, the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near the time of King's birthday.
329
330
On January 17, 2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states.
331
Arizona
(1992),
New Hampshire
(1999) and
Utah
(2000) were the last states to recognize the holiday. Utah previously celebrated the holiday under the name Human Rights Day.
332
Veneration
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)
King was
canonized
by Archbishop
Timothy Paul
of the Holy Christian Orthodox Church on September 9, 2016.
333
334
335
336
337
His feast day was set as April 4, the date of his assassination. King is also honored with a Lesser Feast on the
liturgical calendar
of the
Episcopal Church
338
on April 4 or January 15, the anniversary of his birth. The
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
commemorates King liturgically on January 15.
339
Ideas, influences, and political stances
Christianity
As a Christian minister, King's main influence was
Jesus Christ
and the Christian gospels, which he frequently cited in his speeches.
340
King's faith was strongly based in the
Golden Rule
, loving God above all, and loving your enemies. His
nonviolent
thought was also based in the injunction to
turn the other cheek
in the
Sermon on the Mount
, and Jesus' teaching of putting the sword back into its place (Matthew 26:52).
341
In his
Letter from Birmingham Jail
, King urged action consistent with what he describes as Jesus' "extremist" love, and also quoted numerous other
Christian pacifist
authors. In another sermon, he stated:
Before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment. You know, actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry. I have no other ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the Christian ministry. I don't plan to run for any political office. I don't plan to do anything but remain a preacher. And what I'm doing in this struggle, along with many others, grows out of my feeling that the preacher must be concerned about the whole man.
342
343
King's private writings as an undergraduate in seminary show that he rejected
biblical literalism
; he described the Bible as "
mythological
", doubted that Jesus was
born of a virgin
and did not believe that the
story of Jonah and the whale
was true.
344
Among the thinkers who influenced King's theological outlook were
L. Harold DeWolf
Edgar Brightman
Peter Bertocci
Walter George Muelder
Walter Rauschenbusch
, and
Reinhold Niebuhr
345
The Measure of a Man
In 1959, King published a short book called
The Measure of a Man
, which contained his sermons "
What is Man?
" and "The Dimensions of a Complete Life". The sermons argued for man's need for God's love and criticized the racial injustices of Western civilization.
346
Nonviolence
King worked alongside Quakers such as
Bayard Rustin
to develop nonviolent tactics.
World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
347
African-American civil rights activist
Bayard Rustin
was King's first regular advisor on
nonviolence
348
King was also advised by the white activists
Harris Wofford
and
Glenn Smiley
349
Rustin and Smiley came from the
Christian pacifist
tradition, and Wofford and Rustin both studied
Mahatma Gandhi
's teachings. Rustin had applied nonviolence with the
Journey of Reconciliation
campaign in the 1940s,
350
and Wofford had been promoting
Gandhism
to Southern blacks since the early 1950s.
349
King initially knew little about Gandhi and rarely used the term "nonviolence" during his early activism. King initially believed in and practiced self-defense, even obtaining guns to defend against possible attackers. The pacifists showed him the alternative of
nonviolent resistance
, arguing that this would be a better means to accomplish his goals. King then vowed to no longer personally use arms.
351
352
King at the 1963 Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C.
In a chapter of
Stride Toward Freedom
, King outlined his understanding of nonviolence, which seeks to win an opponent to friendship, rather than to humiliate or defeat him. The chapter draws from an address by Wofford, with Rustin and
Stanley Levison
also providing guidance and ghostwriting.
353
King was inspired by Gandhi and his success with nonviolent activism, and as a theology student, King described Gandhi as being one of the "individuals who greatly reveal the working of the Spirit of God".
354
King had "for a long time ... wanted to take a trip to India."
355
With assistance from Harris Wofford, the
American Friends Service Committee
, and other supporters,
he was able to fund the journey in February 1959
356
357
The trip deepened his understanding of
nonviolent resistance
and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity."
When receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King hailed the "successful precedent" of using nonviolence "by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire ... He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury and courage."
358
Another influence was
Henry David Thoreau
's essay
On Civil Disobedience
and its theme of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.
359
He also was greatly influenced by the works of Protestant theologians
Reinhold Niebuhr
and
Paul Tillich
360
and said that
Walter Rauschenbusch
's
Christianity and the Social Crisis
left an "indelible imprint" on his thinking by giving him a theological grounding for his social concerns.
361
362
King was moved by Rauschenbusch's vision of Christians spreading social unrest in "perpetual but friendly conflict" with the state, simultaneously critiquing it and calling it to act as an instrument of justice.
363
However, he was apparently unaware of the
American tradition
of
Christian pacifism
exemplified by
Adin Ballou
and
William Lloyd Garrison
364
King frequently referred to Jesus'
Sermon on the Mount
as central for his work.
362
365
366
367
Before 1960, King also sometimes used the concept of "
agape
" (brotherly Christian love).
368
369
Even after renouncing personal use of guns, King had a complex relationship with self-defense in the movement. He publicly discouraged it as a widespread practice but acknowledged that it was sometimes necessary.
370
Throughout his career King was frequently protected by other civil rights activists who carried arms, such as
Colonel Stone Johnson
371
Robert Hayling
, and the
Deacons for Defense and Justice
372
373
Amid recurring
riots in the mid-1960s
, King reaffirmed his commitment to nonviolence. He stated that riots were "the language of the unheard", the result of a failure to improve economic conditions and address racial injustice, but condemned them as "self-defeating and socially destructive".
374
375
Criticism within the movement
King was criticized by other black leaders in the civil rights movement. This included more militant thinkers such as
Nation of Islam
member
Malcolm X
376
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
founder
Ella Baker
regarded King as a charismatic
media figure
who lost touch with the grassroots of the movement
377
as he became close to elite figures like
Nelson Rockefeller
378
Stokely Carmichael
, a protege of Baker's, became a black
separatist
and disagreed with King's plea for
racial integration
because he considered it an insult to a uniquely
African-American culture
379
380
He also took issue that King's non-violence approach depended on appealing to America's conscience, feeling America had none to appeal to.
381
Activism and involvement with Native Americans
King was an avid supporter of Native American rights and Native Americans were active supporters of King's
civil rights movement
382
The
Native American Rights Fund
(NARF) was patterned after the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund.
383
The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was especially supportive in King's campaigns especially the
Poor People's Campaign
in 1968.
384
In King's book
Why We Can't Wait
he writes:
Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.
385
In the late 1950s, the remaining
Creek
in Alabama were trying to completely desegregate schools. Light-complexioned Native children were allowed to ride buses to previously all-white schools, while dark-skinned Native children from the same band were barred from the same buses.
383
Tribal leaders, hearing of King's desegregation campaign in Birmingham, contacted him for assistance. Through his intervention the problem was quickly resolved.
383
In September 1959, after giving a speech at the
University of Arizona
on the ideals of using nonviolent methods in creating social change, King stated his belief that one must not use force in this struggle "but match the violence of his opponents with his suffering."
386
King then went to Southside Presbyterian, a predominantly Native American church, and was fascinated by their photos; he wanted to go to an Indian Reservation to meet the people so Casper Glenn took King to the Papago Indian Reservation.
386
He met with all the tribal leaders, visited another Presbyterian church near the reservation, and preached there, attracting a Native American crowd.
386
He later returned to Old Pueblo in March 1962 where he preached again to a Native American congregation.
386
King would continue to attract the attention of Native Americans throughout the civil rights movement. During the
1963 March on Washington
there was a sizable Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota and from the
Navajo nation
383
387
King was a major inspiration, along with the
civil rights movement
, of the
Native American rights movement
of the 1960s and many of its leaders.
383
John Echohawk, a member of the
Pawnee tribe
who was the executive director and a founder of the Native American Rights Fund, stated:
Inspired by Dr. King, who was advancing the civil rights agenda of equality under the laws of this country, we thought that we could also use the laws to advance our Indianship, to live as tribes in our territories governed by our own laws under the principles of tribal sovereignty that had been with us ever since 1831. We believed that we could fight for a policy of self-determination that was consistent with U.S. law and that we could govern our own affairs, define our own ways and continue to survive in this society.
388
Politics
As the leader of the SCLC, King maintained a policy of not publicly endorsing a U.S. political party or candidate: "I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either."
389
In a 1958 interview, he expressed his view that neither party was perfect, saying, "I don't think the
Republican party
is a party full of the almighty God nor is the
Democratic party
. They both have weaknesses ... And I'm not inextricably bound to either party."
390
King did praise Democratic Senator
Paul Douglas
of Illinois as being the "greatest of all senators" because of his fierce advocacy for civil rights causes.
391
King critiqued both parties' performance on promoting racial equality:
Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern
Dixiecrats
. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of
reactionary
right-wing northern Republicans. And this
coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right-wing reactionary northern Republicans
defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.
392
Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956 he said that he had not decided whether he would vote for Democrat
Adlai Stevenson II
or Republican
Dwight D. Eisenhower
at the
1956 presidential election
, but that "In the past, I always voted the Democratic ticket."
393
In his autobiography, King says that in
1960
he privately voted for Democratic candidate
John F. Kennedy
: "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one." King adds that he likely would have made an exception to his non-endorsement policy for a second Kennedy term, saying "Had President Kennedy lived, I would probably have endorsed him in 1964."
394
In
1964
, King urged his supporters "and all people of goodwill" to vote against Republican Senator
Barry Goldwater
for president, saying that his election "would be a tragedy, and certainly suicidal almost, for the nation and the world."
395
King believed
Robert F. Kennedy
would make for a good president, but also believed that he wouldn't beat Johnson in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries. He also expressed support for the possible presidential candidacies of Republicans
Nelson Rockefeller
George Romney
and
Charles Percy
396
Banner at the
2012 Republican National Convention
(King's portrait blurred due to copyright)
King rejected both
laissez-faire
capitalism
and
communism
; King had read
Marx
while at Morehouse but rejected communism because of its "
materialistic interpretation of history
" that denied religion, its "
ethical relativism
", and its "
political totalitarianism
". He stated that one focused too much on the individual while
the other
focused too much on the collective.
397
In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic ..."
398
399
In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and said, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."
400
King further said that "capitalism has outlived its usefulness" and "failed to meet the needs of the masses".
401
King was critical of American culture saying "when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered" and that America must undergo a "radical revolution of values".
402
403
King considered that in America "the problem is that we all too often have
socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor
".
404
405
Compensation
See also:
Reparations for slavery debate in the United States
King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for
Playboy
in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of $50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups.
406
He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils."
407
He presented this idea as an application of the
common law
regarding settlement of unpaid labor but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of
all
races."
408
Television
Actress
Nichelle Nichols
planned to leave the science-fiction television series
Star Trek
in 1967 after
its first season
409
She changed her mind after talking to King,
410
who was a fan of the show. King explained that her character signified a future of greater racial cooperation.
411
King told Nichols, "You are our image of where we're going, you're 300 years from now, and that means that's where we are and it takes place now. Keep doing what you're doing, you are our inspiration."
412
As Nichols recounted:
Star Trek
was one of the only shows that [King] and his wife
Coretta
would allow their little children to watch. And I thanked him and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face. And he said, 'Don't you understand for the first time we're seen as we should be seen. You don't have a black role. You have an equal role.'
409
The series' creator,
Gene Roddenberry
, was deeply moved upon learning of King's support.
413
State surveillance and coercion
FBI surveillance and wiretapping
Memo describing FBI attempts to disrupt the Poor People's Campaign with fraudulent claims about King‍—‌part of the
COINTELPRO
campaign against the anti-war and civil rights movements
FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover
personally ordered surveillance of King, with the intent to undermine his power as a civil rights leader.
414
415
The
Church Committee
, a 1975 investigation by the
U.S. Congress
, found that "From December 1963 until his death in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to 'neutralize' him as an effective civil rights leader."
416
In the fall of 1963, the FBI received authorization from Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy
to proceed with wiretapping of King's phone lines, purportedly due to his association with
Stanley Levison
417
The Bureau informed President
John F. Kennedy
. He and his brother unsuccessfully tried to persuade King to dissociate himself from Levison, a New York lawyer who had been involved with Communist Party USA.
418
419
Although Robert Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's telephone lines "on a trial basis, for a month or so",
420
Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.
119
The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and King, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country.
418
421
In 1967, Hoover listed the
SCLC
as a black nationalist hate group, with the instructions: "No opportunity should be missed to exploit through counterintelligence techniques the organizational and personal conflicts of the leaderships of the groups ... to insure [
sic
] the targeted group is disrupted, ridiculed, or discredited."
415
422
Police surveillance
King was also the subject of extensive surveillance by local police agencies throughout the United States. At the March on Washington, where King declared, "We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality", undercover police from both the Birmingham Police Department and the Philadelphia Police Department were on hand to monitor the day's proceedings. Additional documented instances of local police that monitored King include the New York Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.
423
The Memphis Police Department also spied on King in the spring of 1968, as the civil rights leader was taking part in a campaign to support striking sanitation workers in the Tennessee city. A fire station was located across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the boarding house in which James Earl Ray was staying. Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance.
424
Agents were watching King at the time he was shot.
425
Immediately following the shooting, officers rushed to the motel. Marrell McCollough, an undercover police officer, was the first person to administer first aid to King.
426
The antagonism between King and the FBI, the lack of an
all points bulletin
to find the killer, and the police presence nearby led to speculation that the FBI was involved in the assassination.
427
NSA monitoring of King's communications
In a secret operation code-named "
Minaret
", the
National Security Agency
monitored the communications of leading Americans, including King, who were critical of the
U.S. war in Vietnam
428
A review by the NSA itself concluded that Minaret was "disreputable if not outright illegal".
428
Allegations of communism
For years, Hoover had been suspicious of potential
influence of communists
in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights.
429
Hoover directed the FBI to track King in 1957, and the SCLC when it was established.
Due to the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, the FBI feared Levison was working as an "agent of influence" over King, in spite of its own reports in 1963 that Levison had left the Party and was no longer associated in business dealings with them.
430
Another King lieutenant,
Jack O'Dell
, was also linked to the Communist Party by sworn testimony before the
House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC).
431
Despite the extensive surveillance, by 1976 the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were actually involved with any communist organizations.
416
For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to communism. In a 1965
Playboy
interview, he stated that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida."
432
He argued that Hoover was "following the path of appeasement of political powers in the South" and that his concern for communist infiltration of the civil rights movement was meant to "aid and abet the salacious claims of southern racists and the extreme right-wing elements."
416
Hoover replied by saying that King was "the most notorious liar in the country".
433
After his "I Have A Dream" speech, the FBI described King as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country".
421
It alleged that he was "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists."
434
The attempts to prove that King was a communist were related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were content with the status quo but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators".
435
King said that "the Negro revolution is a genuine revolution, born from the same womb that produces all massive social upheavals—the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations."
436
CIA surveillance
CIA files declassified in 2017 revealed that the agency was investigating possible links between King and Communism after a
Washington Post
article dated November 4, 1964, claimed he was invited to the
Soviet Union
and that Ralph Abernathy, as spokesman for King, refused to comment on the source of the invitation.
437
Mail belonging to King and other civil rights activists was intercepted by the CIA program
HTLINGUAL
438
Allegations of adultery
The only meeting of King and
Malcolm X
, outside the
United States Senate chamber
, March 26, 1964, during the Senate debates regarding the (eventual)
Civil Rights Act of 1964
439
The FBI attempted to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life. FBI surveillance, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he had extramarital affairs.
421
The FBI distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding sources of the SCLC, and King's family.
440
The bureau sent anonymous letters to King threatening to reveal information about his affairs.
441
The
FBI–King letter
sent to King just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize read, in part:
Part of the
FBI–King letter
442
mailed anonymously by the FBI. Other portions of the letter which were previously not made public would be uncovered in 2014.
442
The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [
sic
]). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.
443
The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons.
444
King interpreted this package as an attempt to drive him to suicide,
445
although
William Sullivan
, then head of the Domestic Intelligence Division, argued it may have only been intended to "convince Dr. King to resign from the SCLC."
416
Upon the release of the full letter in 2014, Yale history professor
Beverly Gage
noted in a
New York Times
article that the claim that the FBI "simply meant to push King out, not induce suicide" was a possibility, pointing out that "Another uncovered portion of the note praises "older leaders" like the NAACP executive director
Roy Wilkins
, urging King to step aside and let other men lead the civil rights movement."
442
King refused to succumb to the FBI's threats.
421
In 1977, district court judge
John Lewis Smith Jr.
ordered the recorded audiotapes and written transcripts resulting from the FBI's electronic surveillance of King between 1963-68 to be sealed from public access in the
National Archives
until 2027.
446
In 2019, an FBI file emerged on which a handwritten note alleged that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. Historians who have examined this notional evidence have dismissed it as highly unreliable.
447
448
David Garrow
, a King biographer, wrote that "the suggestion ... that he either actively tolerated or personally employed violence against any woman, even while drunk, poses so fundamental a challenge to his historical stature as to require the most complete and extensive historical review possible".
449
448
Garrow's reliance on a handwritten note appended to a typed report is considered poor scholarship by other authorities. The professor of American studies at the
University of Nottingham
, Peter Ling, pointed out that Garrow was excessively credulous, if not naive, in accepting the accuracy of FBI reports during a period when it was undertaking an operation to attempt to discredit King.
450
Professors
Jeanne Theoharis
Barbara Ransby
Nathan Connolly
and
Glenda Gilmore
have expressed reservations about Garrow's scholarship. Theoharis commented "Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this." It is not the first time the rigor of Garrow's work has been called into serious question.
448
Clayborne Carson, King biographer and overseer of the Dr. King records at Stanford University states that he came to the opposite conclusion of Garrow:
None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a 1964 recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs. King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording. This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report. You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present.
451
The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in 2027.
452
In his 1989 autobiography
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down
, Ralph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation."
453
In a later interview, Abernathy said he only wrote the term "womanizing", that he did not specifically say King had
extramarital sex
and that the infidelities were
emotional
rather than sexual.
454
Abernathy criticized the media for sensationalizing the statements he wrote about King's affairs,
454
such as the allegation King had a sexual affair the night before he was assassinated.
454
In his 1986 book
Bearing the Cross
, Garrow wrote about affairs, including one woman King saw almost daily. According to Garrow, "that relationship ... increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King's life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings ... of King's travels." He alleged that King explained his affairs as "a form of anxiety reduction". Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt".
455
King's wife, Coretta, appeared to have accepted his affairs with equanimity, saying once that "all that other business just doesn't have a place in the very high-level relationship we enjoyed."
456
Shortly after
Bearing the Cross
was released, civil rights author
Howell Raines
gave the book a positive review but opined that Garrow's allegations about King's sex life were "sensational" and stated that Garrow was "amassing facts rather than analyzing them".
457
Awards and recognition
King showing his medallion, which he received from Mayor Wagner, 1964
King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities.
458
On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest winner of the
Nobel Peace Prize
, which was awarded to him for leading nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the U.S.
459
460
In 1965, he was awarded the American Liberties Medallion by the
American Jewish Committee
for his "exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty."
458
461
In his acceptance remarks, King said, "Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free."
462
In 1957, he was awarded the
Spingarn Medal
from the
NAACP
463
Two years later, he won the
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
for
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
464
In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded King the
Margaret Sanger Award
for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity."
465
Also in 1966, King was elected as a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
466
In November 1967, he made a 24-hour trip to the UK to receive an honorary
Doctorate in Civil Law
from
Newcastle University
, becoming the first African American the institution had recognized in this way.
315
In an impromptu acceptance speech,
314
he said:
There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.
King after receiving his honorary doctorate from
Newcastle University
In addition to his nominations for three Grammy Awards, King posthumously won for
Best Spoken Word Recording
in 1971 for "Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam".
467
In 1977, President
Jimmy Carter
posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
to King. The citation read:
Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America. He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet.
468
King and his wife were also awarded the
Congressional Gold Medal
in 2004.
469
King was second in
Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century
470
In 1963, he was named
Time
Person of the Year
, and, in 2000, he was voted sixth in an online "Person of the Century" poll by the same magazine.
471
King placed third in
The Greatest American
conducted by the
Discovery Channel
and
AOL
472
Five-dollar bill
On April 20, 2016, Treasury Secretary
Jacob Lew
announced that the $5, $10, and $20 bills would all undergo redesign prior to 2020. Lew said that while Lincoln would remain on the front of the $5 bill, the reverse would be redesigned to depict various historical events that had occurred at the Lincoln Memorial. Among the planned designs are images from King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
473
Memorials
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
in
Washington, D.C.
Main article:
List of memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
Many memorial sites, buildings and sculptures have been created to honor Martin Luther King Jr, including the
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
in Washington, D.C.,
474
the
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library
in
San Jose
, California, and the
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
in
West Potomac Park
next to the
National Mall
in Washington, D.C.
Honorary doctorates
King has received several
honorary doctorates
475
1957:
Doctor of Humane Letters
Morehouse College
Doctor of Laws
Howard University
Doctor of Divinity
Chicago Theological Seminary
1958:
Doctor of Laws
Morgan State College
Doctor of Humanities
Central State College
1959:
Doctor of Divinity
Boston University
1961:
Doctor of Laws
Lincoln University
Doctor of Laws
University of Bridgeport
1962:
Doctor of Civil Laws
Bard College
1963:
Doctor of Letters
Keuka College
1964:
Doctor of Divinity
Wesleyan College
Doctor of Laws
Jewish Theological Seminary
Doctor of Laws
Yale University
Doctor of Divinity
Springfield College
1965:
Doctor of Laws
Hofstra University
Doctor of Humane Letters
Oberlin College
Doctor of Social Science
Amsterdam Free University
Doctor of Divinity
St. Peter's College
1967:
Doctor of Civil Law
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Doctor of Laws
Grinnell College
Works
Stride Toward Freedom
: The Montgomery Story
(1958)
ISBN
978-0-06-250490-6
The Measure of a Man
(1959)
ISBN
978-0-8006-0877-4
Strength to Love
(1963)
ISBN
978-0-8006-9740-2
Why We Can't Wait
(1964)
ISBN
978-0-8070-0112-7
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
(1967)
ISBN
978-0-8070-0571-2
The Trumpet of Conscience
(1968)
ISBN
978-0-8070-0170-7
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
(1986)
ISBN
978-0-06-250931-4
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.
(1998), ed.
Clayborne Carson
ISBN
978-0-446-67650-2
"All Labor Has Dignity"
(2011) ed.
Michael Honey
ISBN
978-0-8070-8600-1
"Thou, Dear God": Prayers That Open Hearts and Spirits
. Collection of King's prayers. (2011), ed.
Lewis Baldwin
ISBN
978-0-8070-8603-2
MLK: A Celebration in Word and Image
(2011). Photographed by
Bob Adelman
, introduced by
Charles Johnson
ISBN
978-0-8070-0316-9
Discography
Albums
Charted albums by Martin Luther King Jr.
Title
Year
Peak
US
476
The Great March to Freedom
1963
141
The March on Washington
102
Freedom March on Washington
119
I Have a Dream
1968
69
The American Dream
173
In Search of Freedom
150
In the Struggle for Freedom and Human Dignity
154
Singles
Charted singles by Martin Luther King Jr.
Title
Year
Peak
Album
US
476
"I Have a Dream"
Gordy
7023 – b/w
We Shall Overcome
Liz Lands
1968
88
I Have a Dream
(1968)
See also
African American founding fathers of the United States
– Activists for legal equality and human liberty
Civil rights movement
– 1954–1968 U.S. social movement
Civil rights movement in popular culture
Equality before the law
– Judicial principle
List of civil rights leaders
List of peace activists
List of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
– U.S. holiday, 3rd Monday of January
Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
Violence begets violence
– Aphorism used by Martin Luther King Jr.
References
Notes
King Jr's birth certificate was later altered to read "Martin Luther King Jr." on July 23, 1957, when he was 28 years old.
19
20
22
Though commonly attributed to King, this expression originated with 19th-century abolitionist
Theodore Parker
194
Citations
Jackson 2006
, p. 53.
Glisson 2006
, p. 190.
Theoharis, Athan G.; Poveda, Tony G.; Powers, Richard Gid; Rosenfeld, Susan (1999).
The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide
. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.
123
ISBN
0-89774-991-X
Ogletree, Charles J. (2004).
All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education
. W. W. Norton & Co. p.
138
ISBN
0-393-05897-2
"Birth & Family"
The King Center
. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Archived from
the original
on January 22, 2013
. Retrieved
January 22,
2020
"Martin Luther King Jr"
Biography
. A&E Television Networks, LLC. March 9, 2015.
Archived
from the original on March 10, 2020
. Retrieved
January 22,
2020
"Upbringing & Studies"
. The King Center. Archived from
the original
on January 22, 2013
. Retrieved
September 2,
2012
Oates 1983
, p. 6.
"King, James Albert"
. Archived from
the original
on December 17, 2014
. Retrieved
June 24,
2014
Nsenga, Burton (January 13, 2011).
"AfricanAncestry.com Reveals Roots of MLK and Marcus Garvey"
Archived
from the original on January 18, 2020
. Retrieved
May 29,
2020
They were also able to discover that Coretta Scott King shared ancestry with the Mend people of Sierra Leone.
Nelson, Alondra
(2016).
The Social Life of DNA
. Beacon Press. pp.
160–
161.
ISBN
978-0-8070-2718-9
His mtDNA analysis associated him with the Mende.
Fleming 2008
, p. 2.
Frady 2002
, p. 12.
Oates 1983
, p. 7.
Oates 1983
, p. 4.
Oates 1983
, p. 13.
King 1992
, p. 76.
Eig 2023
, p. 43.
Brown, DeNeen L. (January 15, 2019).
"The story of how Michael King Jr. became Martin Luther King Jr"
The Washington Post
Archived
from the original on December 31, 2019
. Retrieved
January 20,
2019
Nancy Clanton, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (January 17, 2020).
"Why Martin Luther King Jr.'s father changed their names"
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Archived
from the original on January 20, 2020
. Retrieved
February 3,
2020
King 1992
, pp. 30–31.
King 1992
, p. 31.
Oates 1983
, p. 5.
Oates 1983
, p. 8.
Frady 2002
, p. 14.
Manheimer 2004
, p. 15.
Oates 1983
, pp. 8–9.
Oates 1983
, p. 9.
Oates 1983
, p. 10.
Pierce, Alan (2004).
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr
. Abdo Pub Co. p.
14
ISBN
978-1-59197-727-8
Manheimer 2004
, p. 13.
Fleming 2008
, p. 4.
Manheimer 2004
, p. 14.
Frady 2002
, p. 15.
Manheimer 2004
, p. 9.
Manheimer 2004
, p. 10.
Oates 1983
, p. 12.
Millender, Dharathula H. (1986).
Martin Luther King Jr.: Young Man with a Dream
. Aladdin. pp.
45–46
ISBN
978-0-02-042010-1
Frady 2002
, p. 13.
Katznelson, Ira (2005).
When Affirmative Action was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
. WW Norton & Co. p.
ISBN
0-393-05213-3
Oates 1983
, p. 11.
Boyd 1996
, p. 23.
"King enters seventh grade at Atlanta University Laboratory School"
The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
. Stanford University. June 12, 2017.
Archived
from the original on April 27, 2021
. Retrieved
September 17,
2020
Manheimer 2004
, p. 16.
Blake, John (April 16, 2013).
"How MLK became an angry black man"
CNN
Archived
from the original on July 13, 2020
. Retrieved
May 29,
2020
King 1992
, p. 82.
Oates 1983
, p. 15.
Oates 1983
, p. 14.
"An Autobiography of Religious Development"
The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute
. Stanford University. Archived from
the original
on December 18, 2014
. Retrieved
November 15,
2018
King 1998
, p. 14.
King 1998
, p. 6.
Fleming 2008
, p. 8.
Patterson 1969
, p. 25.
Frady 2002
, p. 17.
Oates 1983
, p. 16.
Davis 2005
, p. 18.
Muse 1978
, p. 17.
Rowland 1990
, p. 23.
"The Negro and the Constitution"
The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
. Stanford University. December 9, 2014
. Retrieved
October 12,
2020
Fraser, C. Gerald (August 11, 1974).
"Thousands of Black Elks in City To Attend Annual Convention"
The New York Times
Archived
from the original on March 16, 2021
. Retrieved
October 12,
2020
Crenshaw, Wayne (January 18, 2019).
"King's 'journey to the mountain top' started in Dublin"
Macon Telegraph
Archived
from the original on January 26, 2021
. Retrieved
October 12,
2020
Manheimer 2004
, p. 17.
Fleming 2008
, p. 9.
Manheimer 2004
, p. 19.
Davis 2005
, p. 10.
Schuman 2014
, chpt. 2.
"King at Morehouse"
Morehouse College
. Retrieved
March 5,
2026
Tewa, Sophia (April 3, 2018).
"How picking tobacco in Connecticut influenced MLK's life"
Connecticut Post
. Archived from
the original
on November 24, 2020
. Retrieved
October 18,
2020
"MLK Worked Two Summers on Simsbury Tobacco Farm"
NBC Connecticut
. January 19, 2015.
Archived
from the original on November 29, 2020
. Retrieved
October 18,
2020
Christoffersen, John (January 17, 2011).
"MLK Was Inspired by Time in Connecticut"
NBC Connecticut
Archived
from the original on May 13, 2021
. Retrieved
October 18,
2020
Kochakian, Mary (January 17, 2000).
"How a Trip To Connecticut Changed Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life"
The Hartford Courant
. Archived from
the original
on December 30, 2019
. Retrieved
October 18,
2020
Brindley, Emily (November 13, 2019).
"Martin Luther King Jr.'s time in Connecticut was pivotal, but has never been thoroughly documented; that's about to change"
courant.com
Archived
from the original on July 24, 2020
. Retrieved
October 19,
2020
Kelly, Jason (January 1, 2013).
"Benjamin Mays found a voice for civil rights"
The University of Chicago
. Archived from
the original
on March 9, 2021
. Retrieved
June 6,
2020
Frady 2002
, p. 18.
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Miller, Keith D. (1998).
Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King Jr. and Its Sources
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139
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0-8203-2013-7
Mis, Melody S. (2008).
Meet Martin Luther King, Jr
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20
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978-1-4042-4209-8
Slessarev, Helene (1997).
The Betrayal of the Urban Poor
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140
ISBN
1-56639-543-7
CIA (October 5, 1967).
"Views on Black Militant Situation in Chicago"
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King, Martin Luther Jr.
"The 11 Most Anti-Capitalist Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr"
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The African American Voice in U.S. Foreign Policy Since World War II
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Baldwin, Lewis V. (1992).
To Make the Wounded Whole: The Cultural Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr
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ISBN
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Long, Michael G. (2002).
Against Us, But for Us: Martin Luther King Jr. and the State
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ISBN
0-86554-768-8
Dyson, Michael Eric (2008).
"Facing Death"
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and how it changed America
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Shellnutt, Kate (February 23, 2018).
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David J. Garrow,
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Pierre, Robert E. (October 16, 2011).
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Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theaters and Their Legacies
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0-472-06954-3
Lentz, Richard (1990).
Symbols, the News Magazines, and Martin Luther King
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Ling, Peter J. (2002).
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Dubner, Stephen (2022).
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education is preparation for citizenship ... citizenship has to do with contributing to your own economic well-being, as well as contributing to the economic well-being of the broader society
Sturm, Douglas (1990).
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18
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105.
ISSN
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JSTOR
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2020
Burke, Kevin M. (January 11, 2015).
"A Close Alliance Between MLK and Nelson Rockefeller Revealed"
The Root
Archived
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. Retrieved
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Ling, Peter J. (2002).
Martin Luther King, Jr
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Yeshitela, Omali.
"Abbreviated Report from the International Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S."
African People's Socialist Party. Archived from
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Bates, Karen Grigsby (March 10, 2014).
"Stokely Carmichael, A Philosopher Behind The Black Power Movement"
NPR
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2014
Ross, Gyasi (January 11, 2018).
"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Black People and Indigenous People: How We Cash This Damn Check"
HuffPost
Archived
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April 26,
2020
Bender, Albert (February 13, 2014).
"Dr. King spoke out against the genocide of Native Americans"
People's World
Archived
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. Retrieved
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Garcia, Kevin (December 1, 2014).
"The American Indian Civil Rights Movement: A case study in Civil Society Protest"
Yesterday and Today
12
60–
74.
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Archived
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Rickert, Levi (January 16, 2017).
"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Our Nation was Born in Genocide"
Native News Online
. Archived from
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Leighton, David (April 2, 2017).
"Street Smarts: MLK Jr. visited 'Papago' reservation near Tucson, was fascinated"
The Arizona Daily Star
Archived
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Pineo, Christopher (January 21, 2016).
"Navajos and locals in Gallup celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day"
Navajo Times
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Cook, Roy.
'I have a dream for all God's children,' Martin Luther King Jr. Day"
American Indian Source
Archived
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Oates, Stephen B. (1993).
Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr
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King, Martin Luther Jr. (2000). Carson, Clayborne; Holloran, Peter; Luker, Ralph; Russell, Penny A. (eds.).
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957 – December 1958
. University of California Press. p. 364.
ISBN
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Archived
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Merriner, James L. (March 9, 2003).
"Illinois' liberal giant, Paul Douglas"
Chicago Tribune
Archived
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King, Martin Luther Jr. (2000). Carson, Clayborne; Holloran, Peter; Luker, Ralph; Russell, Penny A. (eds.).
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957 – December 1958
. University of California Press. p. 84.
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Archived
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King, Martin Luther Jr.; Carson, Clayborne (1998).
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King, Martin Luther Jr.; King, Coretta Scott; King, Dexter Scott (1998).
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Laurent, Sylvie (2019).
King and the Other America: The Poor People's Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality
University of California Press
. p. 82.
ISBN
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Hendricks Jr., Obery M. (January 20, 2014).
"The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr"
HuffPost
Archived
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Franklin, Robert Michael (1990).
Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought
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Loggins, Jared A.; Douglas, Andrew J. (2021).
Prophet of Discontent: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Critique of Racial Capitalism
University of Georgia Press
. p. 44.
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Voices of Social Education A Pedagogy of Change
. 2021. p. 79.
Transpacific Antiracism Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th-Century Black America, Japan, and Okinawa
. NYU Press. 2013. p. 149.
Honey, Michael K. (2011).
Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign
. p. 187.
Prophet of Discontent Martin Luther King Jr. and the Critique of Racial Capitalism
. University of Georgia Press. 2021. p. 48.
Washington 1991
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Washington 1991
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Washington 1991
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Demby, Gene (April 8, 2013).
"Zoë Saldaña Climbed Into Lt. Uhura's Chair, Reluctantly"
Code Switch (blog)
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Archived
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Beck, Donald R. (Director) (1991).
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary Special
"Nichelle Nichols Explains How Martin Luther King Convinced Her to Stay on Star Trek"
Open Culture
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Archived
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Speigel, Lee (November 30, 2011).
"Gene Roddenberry's Son Reveals Unhappy 'Star Trek' Family Life"
HuffPost
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Strachan, Alex (August 5, 2010).
"Nichelle Nichols on playing Star Trek's Lt. Uhura and meeting Dr. King"
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Archived
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Now, Gene Roddenberry was a 6-foot-3 guy with muscles. ... And he sat there with tears in his eyes. He said, 'Thank God that someone knows what I'm trying to do. Thank God for Dr. Martin Luther King.'
Dyson, Michael Eric (2008).
"Facing Death"
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and how it changed America
. Basic Civitas Books. pp.
58–59
ISBN
978-0-465-00212-2
Honey, Michael K. (2007).
"Standing at the Crossroads"
Going down Jericho Road the Memphis strike, Martin Luther King's last campaign
(1 ed.). Norton. pp.
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ISBN
978-0-393-04339-6
Hoover developed around-the-clock surveillance campaign aimed at destroying King.
Church, Frank
(April 23, 1976), "Church Committee Book III",
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Case Study
Church Committee
Garrow, David J.
(July–August 2002).
"The FBI and Martin Luther King"
The Atlantic Monthly
Archived
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Herst 2007
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Christensen, Jen (April 7, 2008).
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War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It
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"Black In America – Behind the Scenes: 'Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination'
CNN
Archived
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2016
McKnight, Gerald (1998).
The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People's Crusade
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Martin Luther King Jr.: The FBI Files
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42.
ISBN
978-1-59986-253-8
See also:
Polk, James (April 7, 2008).
"King conspiracy theories still thrive 40 years later"
. CNN.
Archived
from the original on November 10, 2012
. Retrieved
June 16,
2008
and
"King's FBI file Part 1 of 2"
(PDF)
. FBI
. Retrieved
January 16,
2012
permanent dead link
and
"King's FBI file Part 2 of 2"
(PDF)
. FBI
. Retrieved
January 16,
2012
permanent dead link
Knight, Peter (2003).
Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia
. ABC-CLIO. pp.
408
–409.
ISBN
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Pilkington, Ed (September 26, 2013).
"Declassified NSA files show agency spied on Muhammad Ali and MLK"
The Guardian
Archived
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March 18,
2022
Downing, Frederick L. (1986).
To See the Promised Land: The Faith Pilgrimage of Martin Luther King, Jr
. Mercer University Press. pp.
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ISBN
0-86554-207-4
Kotz 2005
, pp. 70–74.
Woods, Jeff (2004).
Black Struggle, Red Scare: Segregation and Anti-communism in the South, 1948–1968
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126
ISBN
0-8071-2926-7
See also:
Wannall, Ray (2000).
The Real J. Edgar Hoover: For the Record
. Turner Publishing. p.
87
ISBN
1-56311-553-0
Washington 1991
, p. 362.
Bruns, Roger (2006).
Martin Luther King Jr.: A Biography
. Greenwood Publishing. p.
67
ISBN
0-313-33686-5
Kotz 2005
, p. 83.
Gilbert, Alan (1990).
Democratic Individuality: A Theory of Moral Progress
. Cambridge University Press. p. 435.
ISBN
0-521-38709-4
Washington 1991
, p. 363.
CIA (November 5, 1967).
"Martin Luther King"
(PDF)
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Naftali, Timothy (December 19, 2005).
"Bush and the NSA spying scandal"
HuffPost
Archived
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April 18,
2019
Brown, DeNeen L. (January 18, 2014).
"Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. The photo still haunts us with what was lost"
The Washington Post
. Retrieved
October 31,
2020
Burnett, Thom (2005).
"Martin Luther King"
Conspiracy Encyclopedia
. Collins & Brown. p.
58
ISBN
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Spragens, William C. (1988).
Popular Images of American Presidents
. Greenwood Publishing. p.
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ISBN
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Gage, Beverly (November 11, 2014).
"What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals"
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Archived
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2015
Kotz 2005
, p. 247.
Frady 2002
, pp. 158–159.
Wilson, Sondra K. (1999).
In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins (1920–1977)
. Oxford University Press. p.
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ISBN
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Phillips, Geraldine N. (Summer 1997).
"Documenting the Struggle for Racial Equality in the Decade of the Sixties"
Prologue
. The National Archives and Records Administration.
Archived
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2008
Brockell, Gillian (May 30, 2019).
'Irresponsible': Historians attack David Garrow's MLK allegations"
The Washington Post
Archived
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. Retrieved
January 18,
2022
Murch, Donna (June 8, 2019).
"A historian's claims about Martin Luther King are shocking – and irresponsible"
The Guardian
Archived
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July 27,
2019
Garrow, David J.
(May 30, 2019).
"The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King"
Standpoint
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the original
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. Retrieved
June 2,
2019
Stubley, Peter; Baynes, Chris (May 28, 2019).
"Martin Luther King Jr 'watched and laughed' as woman was raped, secret FBI recordings allege"
The Independent
Archived
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. Retrieved
January 17,
2022
Reynolds, Barbara Ann (July 3, 2019).
"Salacious FBI information again attacks character of MLK"
New York Amsterdam News
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2019
Griffey, Trevor (May 31, 2019).
"J. Edgar Hoover's revenge: Information the FBI once hoped could destroy Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been declassified"
The Conversation
Archived
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2019
Abernathy, Ralph (1989).
And the walls came tumbling down: an autobiography
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471
ISBN
978-0-06-016192-7
Abernathy, Ralph David (October 29, 1989).
"And the Walls Came Tumbling Down"
. Booknotes. Archived from
the original
on December 11, 2007
. Retrieved
June 14,
2008
Garrow, David (1986).
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
. William Morrow & Co. pp.
375–476
ISBN
978-0-688-04794-8
Frady 2002
, p. 67.
Raines, Howell (November 30, 1986).
"Driven to Martyrdom"
The New York Times
Archived
from the original on May 2, 2017
. Retrieved
July 12,
2013
Warren, Mervyn A. (2001).
King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
. InterVarsity Press. p.
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ISBN
0-8308-2658-0
"Martin Luther King Wins The Nobel Prize for Peace"
The New York Times
. October 15, 1964.
Archived
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February 13,
2018
Wintle, Justin (2001).
Makers of Modern Culture: Makers of Culture
. Routledge. p. 272.
ISBN
0-415-26583-5
Engel, Irving M.
"Commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.: Presentation of American Liberties Medallion"
. American Jewish Committee. Archived from
the original
on June 4, 2006
. Retrieved
March 15,
2018
King, Martin Luther Jr.
"Commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.: Response to Award of American Liberties Medallion"
. American Jewish Committee. Archived from
the original
on June 9, 2006
. Retrieved
March 15,
2018
"Spingarn Medal Winners: 1915 to Today"
. NAACP. Archived from
the original
on August 2, 2014
. Retrieved
January 16,
2013
"Martin Luther King Jr"
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
Archived
from the original on April 2, 2012
. Retrieved
October 2,
2011
"The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. upon accepting The Planned Parenthood Federation Of America Margaret Sanger Award"
PPFA
. Archived from
the original
on February 24, 2008
. Retrieved
August 27,
2008
"SCLC Press Release"
. SCLC via the King Center. May 16, 1966. Archived from
the original
on December 15, 2012
. Retrieved
August 31,
2012
"Did You Know That Martin Luther King Won A GRAMMY?"
GRAMMY.com
. January 17, 2019.
Archived
from the original on April 26, 2020
. Retrieved
January 21,
2019
Carter, Jimmy (July 11, 1977).
"Presidential Medal of Freedom Remarks on Presenting the Medal to Dr. Jonas E. Salk and to Martin Luther King Jr"
. The American Presidency Project.
Archived
from the original on May 1, 2013
. Retrieved
January 4,
2013
"Congressional Gold Medal Recipients (1776 to Present)"
. Office of the Clerk: U.S. House of Representatives.
Archived
from the original on January 5, 2007
. Retrieved
June 16,
2008
Gallup, George; Gallup, Alec Jr. (2000).
The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1999
. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 249.
ISBN
0-8420-2699-1
Harpaz, Beth J. (December 27, 1999).
"Time Names Einstein as Person of the Century"
. Associated Press. Archived from
the original
on May 14, 2013
. Retrieved
January 20,
2013
"Reagan voted 'greatest American'
. BBC. June 28, 2005.
Archived
from the original on January 12, 2009
. Retrieved
August 27,
2008
Korte, Gregory (April 21, 2016).
"Anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman to replace Jackson on the front of the $20 bill"
USAToday.com
Archived
from the original on April 23, 2016
. Retrieved
August 28,
2017
"The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library History"
. July 23, 2009. Archived from
the original
on January 16, 2023
. Retrieved
January 16,
2023
"Martin Luther King, Jr. Honorary Degrees"
. Louisiana State University.
Archived
from the original on June 20, 2023
. Retrieved
June 5,
2023
"Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr"
Billboard
Archived
from the original on March 24, 2022
. Retrieved
March 24,
2022
Sources
Abernathy, Ralph
(1989).
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography
. Harper & Row.
ISBN
0-06-016192-2
Boyd, Herb (1996).
Martin Luther King, Jr
. Baronet Books.
ISBN
0-86611-917-5
Branch, Taylor
(2006).
At Canaan's Edge: America In the King Years, 1965–1968
. Simon & Schuster.
ISBN
0-684-85712-X
Cohen, Adam Seth; Taylor, Elizabeth (2000).
Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation
. Back Bay.
ISBN
0-316-83489-0
Davis, Joshua C. (2025).
Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back
. Princeton University Press.
ISBN
978-0-6912-3883-8
Davis, Kenneth C. (2005).
Don't Know Much About Martin Luther King Jr
. Harper Collins.
ISBN
978-0-06-442129-4
. Retrieved
September 17,
2020
Eig, Jonathan
(2023).
King: A Life
. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN
978-0-374-27929-5
Fleming, Alice (2008).
Martin Luther King Jr.: A Dream of Hope
. Sterling.
ISBN
978-1-4027-4439-6
Frady, Marshall
(2002).
Martin Luther King Jr.: A Life
. Penguin.
ISBN
978-0-14-303648-7
Garrow, David J.
(1981).
The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr
. Penguin Books.
ISBN
0-14-006486-9
Garrow, David.
Bearing the Cross
: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(1989). Pulitzer Prize.
ISBN
978-0-06-056692-0
"James L. Bevel, The Strategist of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement", a 1984 paper by Randall Kryn, published with a 1988 addendum by Kryn in Prof.
David Garrow
's
We Shall Overcome, Volume II
(Carlson Publishing Company, 1989).
Glisson, Susan M. (2006).
The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement
. Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN
0-7425-4409-5
Herst, Burton (2007).
Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover that Transformed America
. Carroll & Graf.
ISBN
978-0-7867-1982-2
Jackson, Thomas F. (2006).
From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice
. University of Pennsylvania Press.
ISBN
978-0-8122-3969-0
King, Martin Luther Jr. (1998). Carson, Clayborne (ed.).
Autobiography
. Warner Books.
ISBN
0-446-52412-3
Carson, Clayborne; Luker, Ralph E.; Russell, Penny A.; Harlan, Louis R., eds. (1992).
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929 – June 1951
. University of California Press.
ISBN
0-520-07950-7
Kotz, Nick (2005).
Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America
. Houghton Mifflin Books.
ISBN
0-618-08825-3
Lawson, Steven F.; Payne, Charles M.; Patterson, James T. (2006).
Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1968
. Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN
0-7425-5109-1
Manheimer, Ann S. (2004).
Martin Luther King Jr.: Dreaming of Equality
. Twenty-First Century Books.
ISBN
1-57505-627-5
Muse, Clyde (1978).
The Educational Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr
. University of Oklahoma
. Retrieved
September 17,
2020
Patterson, Lillie (1969).
Martin Luther King, Jr.: man of peace
. Garrard Publishing Company.
ISBN
978-0-8116-4555-3
Archived
from the original on April 8, 2023
. Retrieved
September 17,
2020
Oates, Stephen B. (1983).
Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr
. HarperCollins.
ISBN
978-0-452-25627-9
Robbins, Mary Susannah (2007).
Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists
. Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN
978-0-7425-5914-1
Rowland, Della (1990).
Martin Luther King, Jr: The Dream of Peaceful Revolution
. Silver Burdett Press.
ISBN
978-0-382-24062-1
Archived
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. Retrieved
September 17,
2020
Schuman, Michael A. (2014).
The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Leader for Civil Rights
. Enslow Publishers, Inc.
ISBN
978-0-7660-6149-1
Archived
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. Retrieved
October 18,
2020
Washington, James M. (1991).
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr
. HarperCollins.
ISBN
0-06-064691-8
White, Clarence (1974).
Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Contributions to Education as a Black Leader (1929–1968)
. Loyola University of Chicago.
Archived
from the original on April 8, 2023
. Retrieved
October 18,
2020
Further reading
Ayton, Mel (2005).
A Racial Crime: James Earl Ray and the Murder of Martin Luther King Jr
. Archebooks Publishing.
ISBN
1-59507-075-3
Branch, Taylor
(1988).
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963
. Simon & Schuster.
ISBN
0-671-46097-8
Branch, Taylor (1998).
Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965
. Simon & Schuster.
ISBN
0-684-80819-6
King, Coretta Scott
(1993) [1969].
My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr
. Henry Holth & Co.
ISBN
0-8050-2445-X
King, Martin Luther Jr. (2015).
West, Cornel
(ed.).
The Radical King
Beacon Press
ISBN
978-0-8070-1282-6
Archived
from the original on January 23, 2024
. Retrieved
June 17,
2015
King, Martin Luther Jr. (1986),
Testament of Hope. The essential writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Harper & Row), edited by
J. M. Washington
; reissued by Harper in 1992 as I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World.
Kirk, John A., ed. (2007).
Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Controversies and Debates
Schulke, Flip; McPhee, Penelope (1986).
King Remembered
, Foreword by Jesse Jackson.
ISBN
978-1-4039-9654-1
Waldschmidt-Nelson, Britta (2012).
Dreams and Nightmares: Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X, and the Struggle for Black Equality
. University Press of Florida.
ISBN
0-8130-3723-9
External links
Martin Luther King Jr.
at Wikipedia's
sister projects
Media
from Commons
Quotations
from Wikiquote
Texts
from Wikisource
Resources
from Wikiversity
Data
from Wikidata
The King Center
Archived
January 30, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
Martin Luther King Jr. Collection at Morehouse College
Archived
August 24, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Archived
October 11, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine
, Stanford University
Martin Luther King, Jr. Collected Papers
Archived
January 30, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
held by the
Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Archived
September 4, 2020, at the
Wayback Machine
Works by or about Martin Luther King Jr.
at the
Internet Archive
Martin Luther King Jr.
on Nobelprize.org
including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964
The quest for peace and justice
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Peace Prize
Archived
March 29, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
, Civil Rights Digital Library
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Buffalo
Archived
June 18, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
, digital collection of King's visit and speech in Buffalo, New York on November 9, 1967, from the
University at Buffalo Libraries
BBC
Face to Face
interview
Archived
February 24, 2020, at the
Wayback Machine
with Martin Luther King and
John Freeman
, broadcast October 29, 1961.
FBI file on Martin Luther King Jr.:
Part 1
Archived
January 16, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
and
Part 2
Archived
January 30, 2023, at the
Wayback Machine
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
International Committee of the Red Cross
and
League of Red Cross Societies
Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate
1964
Succeeded by
UNICEF
Martin Luther King Jr.
Speeches, writings, movements, and protests
Speeches
Give Us the Ballot
" (1957)
I Have a Dream
" (1963)
How Long, Not Long
" (1965)
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
" (1967)
The Other America
" (1967)
I've Been to the Mountaintop
" (1968)
Writings
Stride Toward Freedom
(1958)
What Is Man?
" (1959)
Second Emancipation Proclamation
Strength to Love
(1963)
Letter from Birmingham Jail
" (1963)
Why We Can't Wait
(1964)
Conscience for Change
(1967)
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
(1967)
Movements
and protests
Montgomery bus boycott
(1955–1956)
Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
(1957)
Youth March for Integrated Schools
(1959)
Albany Movement
(1961–1962)
Birmingham campaign
(1963)
March on Washington
(1963)
St. Augustine movement
(1963–1964)
Selma to Montgomery marches
(1965)
Chicago Freedom Movement
(1966)
Mississippi March Against Fear
(1966)
Anti-Vietnam
War movement
(1967)
Memphis sanitation strike
(1968)
Poor People's Campaign
(1968)
Organizations
Montgomery Improvement Association
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
People
Family
Coretta Scott King
(wife)
Yolanda King
(daughter)
Martin Luther King III
(son)
Dexter King
(son)
Bernice King
(daughter)
Martin Luther King Sr.
(father)
Alberta Williams King
(mother)
Christine King Farris
(sister)
A. D. King
(brother)
James Albert King
(grandfather)
Alveda King
(niece)
Other
leaders
Ralph Abernathy
(mentor, colleague)
Ella Baker
(colleague)
James Bevel
(strategist / colleague)
Dorothy Cotton
(colleague)
Jesse Jackson
(protégé)
Bernard Lafayette
(colleague)
James Lawson
(colleague)
John Lewis
(colleague)
Joseph Lowery
(colleague)
Benjamin Mays
(mentor)
Diane Nash
(colleague)
James Orange
(colleague)
Bayard Rustin
(advisor)
Fred Shuttlesworth
(colleague)
C. T. Vivian
(colleague)
Wyatt Walker
(colleague)
Hosea Williams
(colleague)
Andrew Young
(colleague)
Assassination
Lorraine Motel
(now National Civil Rights Museum)
Riots
Funeral
James Earl Ray
Jack Kershaw
U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations
(HSCA)
Martin Luther King Jr. Records Collection Act
Loyd Jowers
Trial
Conspiracy theories
Executive Order 14176
Media
Film
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
(1970 documentary)
Our Friend, Martin
(1999 animated)
Boycott
(2001 film)
The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306
(2008 documentary)
Selma
(2014 film)
All the Way
(2016 film)
King in the Wilderness
(2018 documentary)
MLK/FBI
(2020 documentary)
Rustin
(2023 film)
Television
King
(1978 miniseries)
The First Store
" (
The Jeffersons
, 1980)
"Great X-Pectations" (
A Different World
, 1993)
"The Promised Land"
New York Undercover
, 1997)
Selma, Lord, Selma
(1999)
"Return of the King"
The Boondocks
, 2006)
Alpha Man: The Brotherhood of MLK
(2011 documentary)
Genius
MLK/X
, 2024)
Plays
The Meeting
(1987)
The Mountaintop
(2009)
I Dream
(2010)
All the Way
(2012)
Books
Bearing the Cross
(1986)
America in the King Years
(1988, 1998, 2006)
King: A Life
(2023)
Illustrated
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story
(1957 comic book)
Music
Abraham, Martin and John
" (
Dion
March! For Martin Luther King
" (
John Fahey
Martin Luther King's Dream
" (
Strawbs
Happy Birthday
" (
Stevie Wonder
Pride (In the Name of Love)
" (
U2
MLK
" (U2)
King Holiday
" (
King Dream Chorus and Holiday Crew
"By the Time I Get to Arizona" (
Public Enemy
Shed a Little Light
" (
James Taylor
Up to the Mountain
" (
Patti Griffin
"Never Alone Martin" (
Jason Upton
"Symphony of Brotherhood" (
Miri Ben-Ari
Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World; Nicolas Flagello: The Passion of Martin Luther King
(1995 album)
A Dream
" (
Common
featuring
will.i.am
"Glory"
(Common and
John Legend
Related
Civil rights movement in popular culture
Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc.
King v. Trustees of Boston Univ.
Related topics
Other events
1959 tour of India
Big Six
Memorials and
eponymous locations
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
National Historical Park
King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
National Civil Rights Museum
U.S. Capitol Rotunda sculpture
Oval Office bust
Homage to King
sculpture, Atlanta
Hope Moving Forward
statue, Atlanta
Safe House Black History Museum
Statues of Martin Luther King Jr.
Atlanta
Boston
Denver
Houston
Jersey City
Milwaukee
Mexico City
Newark
Pueblo, Colorado
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (Compton)
Landmark for Peace Memorial
, Indianapolis
The Dream
sculpture, Portland, Oregon
Kennedy–King College
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose
Paris park
Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
King County, Washington
Eponymous streets
Other topics
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
passage
African American founding fathers of the United States
Authorship issues
FBI–King suicide letter
Two Americas
Martin Luther King Jr., A Current Analysis
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity
Season for Nonviolence
Civil rights movement in popular culture
Lee–Jackson–King Day
Awards for Martin Luther King Jr.
Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording
1950s
The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows
Stan Freberg
(1959)
1960s
Lincoln Portrait
Carl Sandburg
(1960)
FDR Speaks
– Robert Bialek (producer) (1961)
Humor in Music
Leonard Bernstein
(1962)
The Story-Teller: A Session with Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
(1963)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee
(playwright) (1964)
BBC Tribute to John F. Kennedy
That Was the Week That Was
(1965)
John F. Kennedy: As We Remember Him
Goddard Lieberson
(producer) (1966)
Edward R. Murrow - A Reporter Remembers, Vol. I: The War Years
Edward R. Murrow
(1967)
Gallant Men
Everett Dirksen
(1968)
Lonesome Cities
Rod McKuen
(1969)
1970s
We Love You Call Collect
Art Linkletter
Diane Linkletter
(1970)
Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam
Martin Luther King Jr.
(1971)
Desiderata
Les Crane
(1972)
Lenny
Bruce Botnick
(producer) & the Original Broadway Cast (1973)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Harris
(1974)
Good Evening
Peter Cook
and
Dudley Moore
(1975)
Give 'em Hell, Harry!
James Whitmore
(1976)
Great American Documents
Henry Fonda
Helen Hayes
James Earl Jones
, and
Orson Welles
(1977)
The Belle of Amherst
Julie Harris
(1978)
Citizen Kane (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Orson Welles
(1979)
1980s
Ages of Man: Readings from Shakespeare
John Gielgud
(1980)
Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein
Pat Carroll
(1981)
Donovan's Brain
Orson Welles
(1982)
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Movie on Record
– Tom Voegeli (producer) and Various Artists (1983)
Lincoln Portrait
William Warfield
(1984)
The Words of Gandhi
Ben Kingsley
(1985)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Mike Berniker
(producer) & the Original Broadway Cast (1986)
Interviews from the Class of '55 Recording Sessions
Johnny Cash
Jerry Lee Lewis
Chips Moman
Ricky Nelson
Roy Orbison
Carl Perkins
, and
Sam Phillips
(1987)
Lake Wobegon Days
Garrison Keillor
(1988)
Speech by Rev. Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
(1989)
1990s
It's Always Something
Gilda Radner
(1990)
Gracie: A Love Story
George Burns
(1991)
The Civil War
Ken Burns
(1992)
What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS
Earvin "Magic" Johnson
and Robert O'Keefe (1993)
On the Pulse of Morning
Maya Angelou
(1994)
Get in the Van
Henry Rollins
(1995)
Phenomenal Woman
Maya Angelou
(1996)
It Takes a Village
Hillary Clinton
(1997)
Charles Kuralt's Spring
Charles Kuralt
(1998)
Still Me
Christopher Reeve
(1999)
2000s
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.
LeVar Burton
(2000)
The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography
Sidney Poitier
, Rick Harris, and John Runnette (producers) (2001)
Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
, Jeffrey S. Thomas, Steven Strassman (engineers), and Elisa Shokoff (producer) (2002)
A Song Flung Up to Heaven
Maya Angelou
and Charles B. Potter (producer) (2003)
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
Al Franken
and Paul Ruben (producer) (2004)
My Life
Bill Clinton
(2005)
Dreams from My Father
Barack Obama
(2006)
Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
Jimmy Carter
With Ossie and Ruby
Ossie Davis
and
Ruby Dee
(2007)
The Audacity of Hope
Barack Obama
and Jacob Bronstein (producer) (2008)
An Inconvenient Truth
by
Al Gore
Beau Bridges
Cynthia Nixon
, and
Blair Underwood
(2009)
2010s
Always Looking Up
Michael J. Fox
(2010)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook)
Jon Stewart
(2011)
If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't)
Betty White
(2012)
Society's Child
Janis Ian
(2013)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't
Stephen Colbert
(2014)
Diary of a Mad Diva
Joan Rivers
(2015)
A Full Life: Reflections at 90
Jimmy Carter
(2016)
In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox
Carol Burnett
(2017)
The Princess Diarist
Carrie Fisher
(2018)
Faith: A Journey for All
Jimmy Carter
(2019)
2020s
Becoming
Michelle Obama
(2020)
Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
Rachel Maddow
(2021)
Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation from John Lewis
Don Cheadle
(2022)
Finding Me
Viola Davis
(2023)
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times
Michelle Obama
(2024)
Last Sunday in Plains: A Centennial Celebration
Jimmy Carter
(2025)
Meditations: Reflections of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama
(2026)
Laureates
of the
Nobel Peace Prize
1901–1925
1901
Henry Dunant
Frédéric Passy
1902:
Élie Ducommun
Charles Gobat
1903:
Randal Cremer
1904:
Institute of International Law
1905:
Bertha von Suttner
1906:
Theodore Roosevelt
1907:
Ernesto Moneta
Louis Renault
1908:
Klas Arnoldson
Fredrik Bajer
1909:
A. M. F. Beernaert
Paul Estournelles de Constant
1910:
International Peace Bureau
1911:
Tobias Asser
Alfred Fried
1912:
Elihu Root
1913:
Henri La Fontaine
1914
1915
1916
1917:
International Committee of the Red Cross
1918
1919:
Woodrow Wilson
1920:
Léon Bourgeois
1921:
Hjalmar Branting
Christian Lange
1922:
Fridtjof Nansen
1923
1924
1925:
Austen Chamberlain
Charles Dawes
1926–1950
1926:
Aristide Briand
Gustav Stresemann
1927:
Ferdinand Buisson
Ludwig Quidde
1928
1929:
Frank B. Kellogg
1930:
Nathan Söderblom
1931:
Jane Addams
Nicholas Butler
1932
1933:
Norman Angell
1934:
Arthur Henderson
1935:
Carl von Ossietzky
1936:
Carlos Saavedra Lamas
1937:
Robert Cecil
1938:
Nansen International Office for Refugees
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944:
International Committee of the Red Cross
1945:
Cordell Hull
1946:
Emily Balch
John Mott
1947:
Friends Service Council
American Friends Service Committee
1948
1949:
John Boyd Orr
1950:
Ralph Bunche
1951–1975
1951:
Léon Jouhaux
1952:
Albert Schweitzer
1953:
George C. Marshall
1954:
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1955
1956
1957:
Lester B. Pearson
1958:
Georges Pire
1959:
Philip Noel-Baker
1960:
Albert Luthuli
1961:
Dag Hammarskjöld
1962:
Linus Pauling
1963:
International Committee of the Red Cross
League of Red Cross Societies
1964
Martin Luther King Jr.
1965
UNICEF
1966
1967
1968
René Cassin
1969
International Labour Organization
1970
Norman Borlaug
1971
Willy Brandt
1972
1973
Lê Đức Thọ
(declined award)
Henry Kissinger
1974:
Seán MacBride
Eisaku Satō
1975:
Andrei Sakharov
1976–2000
1976:
Betty Williams
Mairead Corrigan
1977:
Amnesty International
1978:
Anwar Sadat
Menachem Begin
1979:
Mother Teresa
1980:
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
1981:
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1982:
Alva Myrdal
Alfonso García Robles
1983:
Lech Wałęsa
1984:
Desmond Tutu
1985:
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
1986:
Elie Wiesel
1987:
Óscar Arias
1988:
UN Peacekeeping Forces
1989:
Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama)
1990:
Mikhail Gorbachev
1991:
Aung San Suu Kyi
1992:
Rigoberta Menchú
1993:
Nelson Mandela
F. W. de Klerk
1994:
Shimon Peres
Yitzhak Rabin
Yasser Arafat
1995:
Pugwash Conferences
Joseph Rotblat
1996:
Carlos Belo
José Ramos-Horta
1997:
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Jody Williams
1998:
John Hume
David Trimble
1999:
Médecins Sans Frontières
2000:
Kim Dae-jung
2001–present
2001
United Nations
Kofi Annan
2002
Jimmy Carter
2003
Shirin Ebadi
2004
Wangarĩ Maathai
2005
International Atomic Energy Agency
Mohamed ElBaradei
2006
Grameen Bank
Muhammad Yunus
2007
Al Gore
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
2008
Martti Ahtisaari
2009
Barack Obama
2010
Liu Xiaobo
2011
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Leymah Gbowee
Tawakkol Karman
2012
European Union
2013
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
2014
Kailash Satyarthi
Malala Yousafzai
2015
Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet
2016
Juan Manuel Santos
2017
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
2018
Denis Mukwege
Nadia Murad
2019
Abiy Ahmed
2020
World Food Programme
2021
Maria Ressa
Dmitry Muratov
2022
Ales Bialiatski
Memorial
Center for Civil Liberties
2023
Narges Mohammadi
2024
Nihon Hidankyo
2025
María Corina Machado
1964
Nobel Prize
laureates
Chemistry
Dorothy Hodgkin
(Great Britain)
Literature
1964
Jean-Paul Sartre
(France)
Peace
1964
Martin Luther King Jr.
(United States)
Physics
Charles Hard Townes
(United States)
Nikolay Basov
(Soviet Union)
Alexander Prokhorov
(Soviet Union)
Physiology or Medicine
Konrad Emil Bloch
(United States)
Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen
(Germany)
Nobel Prize recipients
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
Pacem in Terris
Peace and Freedom Award
laureates
1960s
1964:
John Howard Griffin
John F. Kennedy
1965:
Martin Luther King Jr.
1966:
R. Sargent Shriver
1967:
A. Philip Randolph
1968:
James Groppi
1969:
Saul Alinsky
1970s
1971:
Dorothy Day
1974:
Harold Hughes
1975:
Hélder Câmara
1976:
Mother Teresa
1979:
Thomas Gumbleton
1980s
1980:
Crystal Lee Sutton
Ernest Leo Unterkoefler
1982:
George F. Kennan
1983:
Helen Caldicott
1985:
Joseph Bernardin
1986:
Maurice John Dingman
1987:
Desmond Tutu
1989:
Eileen Egan
1990s
1990:
Mairead Maguire
1991:
María Julia Hernández
1992:
César Chávez
1993:
Daniel Berrigan
1995:
Jim Wallis
1996:
Samuel Ruiz
1997:
Jim and Shelley Douglass
2000s
2000:
George G. Higgins
2001:
Lech Wałęsa
2002:
Gwen Hennessey
Dorothy Hennessey
2004:
Arthur Simon
2005:
Donald Mosley
2007:
Salim Ghazal
2008:
Marvin Mottet
2009:
Hildegard Goss-Mayr
2010s
2010:
John Dear
2011:
Álvaro Leonel Ramazzini Imeri
2012:
Kim Bobo
2013:
Jean Vanier
2014:
Simone Campbell
2015:
Thích Nhất Hạnh
2016:
Gustavo Gutiérrez
2017:
Widad Akreyi
2019:
Dalai Lama
2019:
Munib Younan
2020s
2022:
Norma Pimentel
2023: Atiya Aftab / Sheryl Olitzky
2024: Chad Pregracke
2025:
Silvio José Báez Ortega
Spingarn Medal
winners
1915:
Ernest Everett Just
1916:
Charles Young
1917:
Harry Burleigh
1918:
William Stanley Braithwaite
1919:
Archibald Grimké
1920:
W. E. B. Du Bois
1921:
Charles Sidney Gilpin
1922:
Mary Burnett Talbert
1923:
George Washington Carver
1924:
Roland Hayes
1925:
James Weldon Johnson
1926:
Carter G. Woodson
1927:
Anthony Overton
1928:
Charles W. Chesnutt
1929:
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson
1930:
Henry A. Hunt
1931:
Richard Berry Harrison
1932:
Robert Russa Moton
1933:
Max Yergan
1934:
William T. B. Williams
1935:
Mary McLeod Bethune
1936:
John Hope
1937:
Walter Francis White
1938:
no award
1939:
Marian Anderson
1940:
Louis T. Wright
1941:
Richard Wright
1942:
A. Philip Randolph
1943:
William H. Hastie
1944:
Charles R. Drew
1945:
Paul Robeson
1946:
Thurgood Marshall
1947:
Percy Lavon Julian
1948:
Channing Heggie Tobias
1949:
Ralph Bunche
1950:
Charles Hamilton Houston
1951:
Mabel K. Staupers
1952:
Harry T. Moore
1953:
Paul R. Williams
1954:
Theodore K. Lawless
1955:
Carl J. Murphy
1956:
Jackie Robinson
1957:
Martin Luther King Jr.
1958:
Daisy Bates
and the
Little Rock Nine
1959:
Duke Ellington
1960:
Langston Hughes
1961:
Kenneth B. Clark
1962:
Robert C. Weaver
1963:
Medgar Evers
1964:
Roy Wilkins
1965:
Leontyne Price
1966:
John H. Johnson
1967:
Edward Brooke
1968:
Sammy Davis Jr.
1969:
Clarence Mitchell Jr.
1970:
Jacob Lawrence
1971:
Leon Sullivan
1972:
Gordon Parks
1973:
Wilson Riles
1974:
Damon Keith
1975:
no award
1976:
Hank Aaron
1977:
Alvin Ailey
and
Alex Haley
1978:
no award
1979:
Andrew Young
and
Rosa Parks
1980:
Rayford Logan
1981:
Coleman Young
1982:
Benjamin Elijah Mays
1983:
Lena Horne
1984:
no award
1985:
Tom Bradley
and
Bill Cosby
1986:
Benjamin Hooks
1987:
Percy Sutton
1988:
Frederick D. Patterson
1989:
Jesse Jackson
1990:
Douglas Wilder
1991:
Colin Powell
1992:
Barbara Jordan
1993:
Dorothy Height
1994:
Maya Angelou
1995:
John Hope Franklin
1996:
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
1997:
Carl Rowan
1998:
Myrlie Evers-Williams
1999:
Earl G. Graves Sr.
2000:
Oprah Winfrey
2001:
Vernon Jordan
2002:
John Lewis
2003:
Constance Baker Motley
2004:
Robert L. Carter
2005:
Oliver Hill
2006:
Ben Carson
2007:
John Conyers
2008:
Ruby Dee
2009:
Julian Bond
2010:
Cicely Tyson
2011:
Frankie Muse Freeman
2012:
Harry Belafonte
2013:
Jessye Norman
2014:
Quincy Jones
2015:
Sidney Poitier
2016:
Nathaniel R. Jones
2017:
no award
2018:
Willie Brown
2019:
Patrick Gaspard
2020:
no award
2021:
Cato T. Laurencin
2022:
Jim Clyburn
2023:
Hazel Dukes
2024:
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
2025:
Kamala Harris
Time
Persons of the Year
1927–1950
Charles Lindbergh
(1927)
Walter Chrysler
(1928)
Owen D. Young
(1929)
Mahatma Gandhi
(1930)
Pierre Laval
(1931)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1932)
Hugh S. Johnson
(1933)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1934)
Haile Selassie
(1935)
Wallis Simpson
(1936)
Chiang Kai-shek
Soong Mei-ling
(1937)
Adolf Hitler
(1938)
Joseph Stalin
(1939)
Winston Churchill
(1940)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1941)
Joseph Stalin
(1942)
George Marshall
(1943)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1944)
Harry S. Truman
(1945)
James F. Byrnes
(1946)
George Marshall
(1947)
Harry S. Truman
(1948)
Winston Churchill
(1949)
The American Fighting-Man
(1950)
1951–1975
Mohammed Mosaddeq
(1951)
Elizabeth II
(1952)
Konrad Adenauer
(1953)
John Foster Dulles
(1954)
Harlow Curtice
(1955)
Hungarian Freedom Fighters
(1956)
Nikita Khrushchev
(1957)
Charles de Gaulle
(1958)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1959)
U.S. Scientists:
George Beadle
Charles Draper
John Enders
Donald Glaser
Joshua Lederberg
Willard Libby
Linus Pauling
Edward Purcell
Isidor Rabi
Emilio Segrè
William Shockley
Edward Teller
Charles Townes
James Van Allen
Robert Woodward
(1960)
John F. Kennedy
(1961)
Pope John XXIII
(1962)
Martin Luther King Jr.
(1963)
Lyndon B. Johnson
(1964)
William Westmoreland
(1965)
The Generation Twenty-Five and Under
(1966)
Lyndon B. Johnson
(1967)
The Apollo 8 Astronauts
William Anders
Frank Borman
Jim Lovell
(1968)
The Middle Americans
(1969)
Willy Brandt
(1970)
Richard Nixon
(1971)
Henry Kissinger
Richard Nixon
(1972)
John Sirica
(1973)
King Faisal
(1974)
American Women:
Susan Brownmiller
Kathleen Byerly
Alison Cheek
Jill Conway
Betty Ford
Ella Grasso
Carla Hills
Barbara Jordan
Billie Jean King
Susie Sharp
Carol Sutton
Addie Wyatt
(1975)
1976–2000
Jimmy Carter
(1976)
Anwar Sadat
(1977)
Deng Xiaoping
(1978)
Ayatollah Khomeini
(1979)
Ronald Reagan
(1980)
Lech Wałęsa
(1981)
The Computer
(1982)
Ronald Reagan
Yuri Andropov
(1983)
Peter Ueberroth
(1984)
Deng Xiaoping
(1985)
Corazon Aquino
(1986)
Mikhail Gorbachev
(1987)
The Endangered Earth
(1988)
Mikhail Gorbachev
(1989)
George H. W. Bush
(1990)
Ted Turner
(1991)
Bill Clinton
(1992)
The Peacemakers:
Yasser Arafat
F. W. de Klerk
Nelson Mandela
Yitzhak Rabin
(1993)
Pope John Paul II
(1994)
Newt Gingrich
(1995)
David Ho
(1996)
Andrew Grove
(1997)
Bill Clinton
Ken Starr
(1998)
Jeff Bezos
(1999)
George W. Bush
(2000)
2001–present
Rudolph Giuliani
(2001)
The Whistleblowers:
Cynthia Cooper
Coleen Rowley
Sherron Watkins
(2002)
The American Soldier
(2003)
George W. Bush
(2004)
The Good Samaritans:
Bono
Bill Gates
Melinda Gates
(2005)
You
(2006)
Vladimir Putin
(2007)
Barack Obama
(2008)
Ben Bernanke
(2009)
Mark Zuckerberg
(2010)
The Protester
(2011)
Barack Obama
(2012)
Pope Francis
(2013)
Ebola Fighters
: Dr. Jerry Brown / Dr.
Kent Brantly
/ Ella Watson-Stryker / Foday Gollah /
Salome Karwah
(2014)
Angela Merkel
(2015)
Donald Trump
(2016)
The Silence Breakers
(2017)
The Guardians:
Jamal Khashoggi
Maria Ressa
Wa Lone
Kyaw Soe Oo
/ Staff of
The Capital
(2018)
Greta Thunberg
(2019)
Joe Biden
Kamala Harris
(2020)
Elon Musk
(2021)
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Spirit of Ukraine
(2022)
Taylor Swift
(2023)
Donald Trump
(2024)
The Architects of AI:
Sam Altman
Dario Amodei
Demis Hassabis
Jensen Huang
Fei-Fei Li
Elon Musk
Lisa Su
Mark Zuckerberg
(2025)
Presidents
of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Martin Luther King Jr.
(1957–1968)
Ralph Abernathy
(1968–1977)
Joseph Lowery
(1977–1997)
Martin Luther King III
(1997–2004)
Fred Shuttlesworth
(2004)
Charles Steele Jr.
(2004–2009)
Howard W. Creecy Jr. (2009–2011)
Charles Steele Jr.
(2012–2024)
DeMark Liggins (2024–present)
Civil rights movement
(1954–1968)
Events
timeline
Prior to 1954
Journey of Reconciliation
Executive Order 9981
Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
Sweatt v. Painter
(1950)
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
(1950)
Baton Rouge bus boycott
1954–1959
Brown v. Board of Education
Bolling v. Sharpe
Briggs v. Elliott
Davis v. Prince Edward County
Gebhart v. Belton
Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company
Read's Drug Store sit-in
Emmett Till
Montgomery bus boycott
Browder v. Gayle
Tallahassee bus boycott
Mansfield school desegregation
1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
Give Us the Ballot
Royal Ice Cream sit-in
Little Rock Nine
Cooper v. Aaron
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Ministers' Manifesto
Dockum Drug Store sit-in
Katz Drug Store sit-in
Youth March for Integrated Schools (1958
1959)
Kissing Case
Biloxi wade-ins
1960–1963
New Year's Day March
Sit-in movement
Greensboro sit-ins
Nashville sit-ins
Sibley Commission
Atlanta sit-ins
Savannah Protest Movement
Greenville Eight
Civil Rights Act of 1960
Ax Handle Saturday
New Orleans school desegregation
Gomillion v. Lightfoot
Boynton v. Virginia
University of Georgia desegregation riot
Rock Hill sit-ins
Tougaloo Nine
Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address
Freedom Rides
Anniston and Birmingham bus attacks
Garner v. Louisiana
Albany Movement
Cambridge movement
University of Chicago sit-ins
Second Emancipation Proclamation
Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot
Atlanta's Berlin Wall
"Segregation now, segregation forever"
Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
Rome sit-ins
1963 Birmingham campaign
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Children's Crusade
Birmingham riot
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights
Detroit Walk to Freedom
Leesburg Stockade
March on Washington
"I Have a Dream"
Big Six
St. Augustine movement
1964–1968
Twenty-fourth Amendment
Chester school protests
Bloody Tuesday
1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests
Freedom Summer
workers' murders
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
Katzenbach v. McClung
1964–1965 Scripto strike
1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
How Long, Not Long
SCOPE Project
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
March Against Fear
White House Conference on Civil Rights
Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement
The Other America
Two Americas
Loving v. Virginia
Memphis sanitation strike
I've Been to the Mountaintop
King assassination
funeral
riots
Civil Rights Act of 1968
Poor People's Campaign
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
1968 Olympics Black Power salute
Activist
groups
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
American Friends Service Committee
Atlanta Negro Voters League
Atlanta Student Movement
Black Panther Party
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Committee for Freedom Now
Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
An Appeal for Human Rights
Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
Council of Federated Organizations
Dallas County Voters League
Deacons for Defense and Justice
Georgia Council on Human Relations
Highlander Folk School
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Lowndes County Freedom Organization
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Montgomery Improvement Association
NAACP
Youth Council
Nashville Student Movement
Nation of Islam
Northern Student Movement
National Council of Negro Women
National Urban League
Operation Breadbasket
Regional Council of Negro Leadership
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Southern Regional Council
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
The Freedom Singers
United Auto Workers (UAW)
Wednesdays in Mississippi
Women's Political Council
Activists
Juanita Abernathy
Ralph Abernathy
Victoria Gray Adams
Zev Aelony
Mathew Ahmann
Muhammad Ali
William G. Anderson
Gwendolyn Armstrong
Arnold Aronson
Ella Baker
James Baldwin
Marion Barry
Daisy Bates
Harry Belafonte
James Bevel
Claude Black
Gloria Blackwell
Randolph Blackwell
Unita Blackwell
Ezell Blair Jr.
Joanne Bland
Julian Bond
Joseph E. Boone
William Holmes Borders
Amelia Boynton
Bruce Boynton
Raylawni Branch
Stanley Branche
Ruby Bridges
Aurelia Browder
H. Rap Brown
R. Jess Brown
Ralph Bunche
John H. Calhoun
Guy Carawan
Stokely Carmichael
Johnnie Carr
James Chaney
J. L. Chestnut
Shirley Chisholm
Colia Lafayette Clark
Ramsey Clark
Septima Clark
Xernona Clayton
Eldridge Cleaver
Kathleen Cleaver
Josephine Dobbs Clement
Charles E. Cobb Jr.
Annie Lee Cooper
Dorothy Cotton
Claudette Colvin
Vernon Dahmer
Jonathan Daniels
Abraham Lincoln Davis
Angela Davis
Joseph DeLaine
Dave Dennis
Annie Bell Robinson Devine
John Wesley Dobbs
Jesse L. Douglas
Patricia Stephens Due
Marian Wright Edelman
Joseph Ellwanger
Charles Evers
Medgar Evers
Myrlie Evers-Williams
Chuck Fager
James Farmer
Walter Fauntroy
James Forman
Marie Foster
Golden Frinks
Georgia Gilmore
Andrew Goodman
Robert Graetz
Fred Gray
Shirley Green-Reese
Jack Greenberg
Dick Gregory
Lawrence Guyot
Prathia Hall
Fannie Lou Hamer
Fred Hampton
William E. Harbour
Vincent Harding
Dorothy Height
Audrey Faye Hendricks
Lola Hendricks
Aaron Henry
Oliver Hill
Donald L. Hollowell
James Hood
Myles Horton
Zilphia Horton
T. R. M. Howard
Ruby Hurley
Cecil Ivory
Jesse Jackson
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Richie Jean Jackson
T. J. Jemison
Esau Jenkins
Barbara Rose Johns
Vernon Johns
Frank Minis Johnson
Clarence Jones
J. Charles Jones
Matthew Jones
Vernon Jordan
Tom Kahn
Clyde Kennard
A. D. King
C.B. King
Coretta Scott King
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Sr.
Bernard Lafayette
James Lawson
Bernard Lee
Sanford R. Leigh
Margaret Burr Leonard
Jim Letherer
Stanley Levison
John Lewis
Viola Liuzzo
Z. Alexander Looby
Joseph Lowery
Clara Luper
Danny Lyon
Malcolm X
Mae Mallory
Vivian Malone
Bob Mants
Thurgood Marshall
Benjamin Mays
Franklin McCain
Charles McDew
Cleve McDowell
Ralph McGill
Floyd McKissick
Joseph McNeil
James Meredith
William Ming
Jack Minnis
Amzie Moore
Cecil B. Moore
Douglas E. Moore
Harriette Moore
Harry T. Moore
Queen Mother Moore
William Lewis Moore
Irene Morgan
Bob Moses
William Moyer
Pauli Murray
Elijah Muhammad
Diane Nash
Charles Neblett
Huey P. Newton
Edgar Nixon
Jack O'Dell
James Orange
Rosa Parks
James Peck
Charles Person
Homer Plessy
Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
Fay Bellamy Powell
Rodney N. Powell
Al Raby
Lincoln Ragsdale
A. Philip Randolph
George Raymond
George Raymond Jr.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Cordell Reagon
James Reeb
Frederick D. Reese
Walter Reuther
Gloria Richardson
David Richmond
Bernice Robinson
Jo Ann Robinson
Angela Russell
Bayard Rustin
Bernie Sanders
Michael Schwerner
Bobby Seale
Pete Seeger
Cleveland Sellers
Charles Sherrod
Alexander D. Shimkin
Fred Shuttlesworth
Modjeska Monteith Simkins
Glenn E. Smiley
A. Maceo Smith
Kelly Miller Smith
Mary Louise Smith
Maxine Smith
Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
Charles Kenzie Steele
Hank Thomas
Dorothy Tillman
A. P. Tureaud
Hartman Turnbow
Albert Turner
C. T. Vivian
A. T. Walden
Wyatt Tee Walker
Hollis Watkins
Walter Francis White
Roy Wilkins
Hosea Williams
Kale Williams
Robert F. Williams
Q. V. Williamson
Andrew Young
Whitney Young
Sammy Younge Jr.
Bob Zellner
James Zwerg
By region
Omaha, Nebraska
South Carolina
Movement
songs
"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
"If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
"Kumbaya"
"Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
"Oh, Freedom"
"This Little Light of Mine"
"We Shall Not Be Moved"
"We Shall Overcome"
"Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
Influences
Nonviolence
Padayatra
Sermon on the Mount
Mahatma Gandhi
Ahimsa
Satyagraha
The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Frederick Douglass
W. E. B. Du Bois
Mary McLeod Bethune
Related
Lyndon B. Johnson
Jim Crow laws
Lynching in the United States
Plessy v. Ferguson
Separate but equal
Buchanan v. Warley
Hocutt v. Wilson
Powell v. Alabama
Smith v. Allwright
Hernandez v. Texas
Loving v. Virginia
African-American women in the movement
Jews in the civil rights movement
Fifth Circuit Four
16th Street Baptist Church
Kelly Ingram Park
A.G. Gaston Motel
Bethel Baptist Church
Brown Chapel
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
Holt Street Baptist Church
Edmund Pettus Bridge
March on Washington Movement
African-American churches attacked
List of lynching victims in the United States
Freedom Schools
Freedom songs
Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Voter Education Project
1960s counterculture
African American founding fathers of the United States
Eyes on the Prize
Legacy
In popular culture
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
Civil Rights Memorial
Civil Rights Movement Archive
Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
Freedom Rides Museum
Freedom Riders National Monument
King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
other King memorials
Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
National Center for Civil and Human Rights
National Civil Rights Museum
National Voting Rights Museum
Rosa Parks Museum
St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
Olympic Black Power Statue
Noted
historians
Taylor Branch
Clayborne Carson
John Dittmer
Michael Eric Dyson
Jonathan Eig
Chuck Fager
Adam Fairclough
David Garrow
David Halberstam
Vincent Harding
Steven F. Lawson
Doug McAdam
Diane McWhorter
Charles M. Payne
Thomas E. Ricks
Timothy Tyson
Akinyele Umoja
Movement photographers
Civil rights movement portal
Civil Rights Memorial
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
Designer
Maya Lin
Martyrs
Louis Allen
Willie Brewster
Benjamin Brown
Johnnie Mae Chappell
James Chaney
Addie Mae Collins
Vernon Dahmer
Jonathan Daniels
Henry Hezekiah Dee
Roman Ducksworth Jr.
Willie Edwards
Medgar Evers
Andrew Goodman
Paul Guihard
Samuel Hammond Jr.
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Wharlest Jackson
Martin Luther King Jr.
Bruce W. Klunder
George W. Lee
Herbert Lee
Viola Liuzzo
Carol Denise McNair
Delano Herman Middleton
Charles Eddie Moore
Oneal Moore
William Lewis Moore
Mack Charles Parker
Lemuel Penn
James Reeb
John Earl Reese
Carole Robertson
Michael Schwerner
Henry Ezekial Smith
Lamar Smith
Emmett Till
Clarence Triggs
Virgil Lamar Ware
Cynthia Wesley
Ben Chester White
Sammy Younge Jr.
Related
Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
Mississippi Cold Case
Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement portal
Coretta Scott King
April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006
Life
Childhood and education
Civil rights movement
1959 tour of India
1967 San Francisco anti-war march
King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
2004 Gandhi Peace Prize
Death and funeral
Other
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
King v. Trustees of Boston Univ.
Reaction
Recognition and tributes
Namesakes
Coretta Scott King Award
Coretta Scott King Young Women's Leadership Academy
Family
Martin Luther King Jr.
(husband)
Yolanda King
(daughter)
Martin Luther King III
(son)
Dexter King
(son)
Bernice King
(daughter)
Edythe Scott Bagley
(sister)
Depictions
King
(1978 miniseries)
Our Friend, Martin
(1999 animated)
Betty & Coretta
(2013 film)
Selma
(2014 film)
The Embrace
(2023 statue)
Rustin
(2023 film)
Commons
Wikiquote
Mahatma Gandhi
Life events
and movements
Indian Ambulance Corps
Tolstoy Farm
Bardoli Satyagraha
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Kheda Satyagraha
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Chauri Chaura incident
Purna Swaraj
flag
Salt March
Dharasana Satyagraha
Vaikom Satyagraha
Aundh Experiment
Gandhi–Irwin Pact
Second Round Table Conference
Padayatra
Poona Pact
Natal Indian Congress
Quit India
speech
Gujarat Vidyapith University
Harijan Sevak Sangh
India ashrams (Kochrab
Sabarmati
Sodepur Khadi
Sevagram)
List of fasts
Assassination
Philosophy
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Composite nationalism
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trusteeship
Education
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Eleven vows
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Publications
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Influences
A Letter to a Hindu
Ahimsa
nonviolence
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Khadi
John Ruskin
Parsee Rustomjee
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The Kingdom of God Is Within You
The Masque of Anarchy
Narmad
Pacifism
Sermon on the Mount
Shravan
Shrimad Rajchandra
Henry Stephens Salt
Tirukkuṛaḷ
Unto This Last
Gandhi's translation
Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram
Ekla Chalo Re
Hari Tuma Haro
Vaishnava Jana To
Vegetarianism
Associates
Swami Anand
C. F. Andrews
Jamnalal Bajaj
Shankarlal Banker
Sarla Behn
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Sudhakar Chaturvedi
Jugatram Dave
Mahadev Desai
Dada Dharmadhikari
Kanu Gandhi
Shiv Prasad Gupta
Umar Hajee Ahmed Jhaveri
J. C. Kumarappa
Hermann Kallenbach
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Acharya Kripalani
Mirabehn
Mohanlal Pandya
Vallabhbhai Patel
Narhari Parikh
Mithuben Petit
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
Bibi Amtus Salam
Sonja Schlesin
Anugrah Narayan Sinha
Shri Krishna Sinha
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Abbas Tyabji
Ravishankar Vyas
Kishorlal Mashruwala
Legacy
Artistic depictions
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Gandhi Peace Award
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Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith
Indian currency (Gandhi Series,
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Indian rupee
Indian 10 Rupee postage stamp
Family
Karamchand Gandhi
(father)
Kasturba
(wife)
Harilal
(son)
Manilal
(son)
Ramdas
(son)
Devdas
(son)
Maganlal
(cousin)
Samaldas
(nephew)
Arun
(grandson)
Ela
(granddaughter)
Rajmohan
(grandson)
Gopalkrishna
(grandson)
Ramchandra
(grandson)
Kanu
(grandson)
Kanu
(grandnephew)
Tushar
(great-grandson)
Leela
(great-granddaughter)
Influenced
14th Dalai Lama
Aung San Suu Kyi
Abhay Bang
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Brajkishore Prasad
C. Rajagopalachari
Eknath Easwaran
Droupadi Murmu
François Bayrou
Gopaldas Ambaidas Desai
Govind Ballabh Pant
Ho Chi Minh
James Bevel
James Lawson
Jawaharlal Nehru
Joan Bondurant
Lal Bahadur Shastri
Lanza del Vasto
Maulana Azad
Martin Luther King Jr.
Maria Lacerda de Moura
Mehdi Bazargan
Morarji Desai
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Ramjee Singh
Steve Biko
Sane Guruji
Vinoba Bhave
Vallabhbhai Patel
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Observances
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African Americans
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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