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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.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King .Jr HD (subtitled) – YouTube

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to navigation Jump to searchNot to be confused with Martin Luther.”Martin Luther King” and “MLK” redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther King (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

The ReverendMartin 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. January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Died	April 4, 1968 (aged 39) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Cause of death	Assassination (by gunshot)
Resting place	Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park
Spouse(s)	Coretta Scott (m. 1953)
Children	Yolanda Martin Dexter Bernice
Parent(s)	Martin Luther King Sr.Alberta Williams King
Relatives	Christine King Farris (sister)Alfred Daniel Williams King (brother)Alveda King (niece)
Education	Morehouse College (BA)Crozer Theological Seminary (BDiv)Boston University (PhD)
Occupation	Baptist ministeractivist
Known for	Civil rights movement, Peace movement
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize (1964)Presidential Medal of Freedom (posthumously, 1977)Congressional Gold Medal (posthumously, 2004)
Memorials	Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Signature

This article is part of a series aboutMartin Luther King Jr.
Biography Sermons and speechesCampaignsMontgomery bus boycott Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom Youth March for Integrated Schools Albany Movement Birmingham campaign Walk to Freedom March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom St. Augustine movement Selma to Montgomery marches Chicago Open Housing Movement March Against Fear Memphis sanitation strike Poor People’s CampaignDeath and memorialAssassination Funeral American federal holiday passage National memorial National Historical Park
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This article is part of
a series aboutMartin Luther King Jr.

Biography Sermons and speechesCampaignsMontgomery bus boycott Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom Youth March for Integrated Schools Albany Movement Birmingham campaign Walk to Freedom March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom St. Augustine movement Selma to Montgomery marches Chicago Open Housing Movement March Against Fear Memphis sanitation strike Poor People’s CampaignDeath and memorialAssassination Funeral American federal holiday passage National memorial National Historical Park

v t e

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. An African American church leader and the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted, nonviolent resistance against Jim Crow and other forms of discrimination.

King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights.^[1] He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the 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 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The SCLC put into practice the tactics of nonviolent protest with some success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were several dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent.^[2] Several times King would be jailed. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI’s COINTELPRO from 1963, forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. The FBI in 1964 mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3]

On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, 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. His death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the 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 holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and the most populous county in Washington State was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.