-
Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929
-
He was the medium of three brothers the result of the marriage of Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. Luther King was originally christened Michael King Jr. (his father's birth name), but after a family trip to Germany, Michael King Sr. decided to change his own name and that of his son to Martin Luther King, after the Augustian theologian Martin
-
At age 15, King Jr. entered Morehouse College, a university for young African-Americans from which he graduated in sociology three years later. A perennial student, he moved to the northeast of the country (Pennsylvania and Boston) to continue his graduate studies and major in theology
-
He graduated from this discipline (theology) at the age of 22 and obtained a doctorate from Boston University four years later (during this time texts and information came to his hands from one of the people who would most influence the way he saw and live life: Mahatma Gandhi).
-
In 1954, at the age of 25, he was appointed pastor of The Baptist Church of Dexter Avenue (Montgomery, Alabama).
-
following the arrest of a black woman after refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, King decided to start a nonviolent protest against racial segregation suffered by his city. Taking advantage of the resonance he had as a pastor, he suggested that Montgomery's black population not use public transport until such racist demonstrations were completely eradicated. A year after the start of the boycott of buses, racial segregation on public transport in the city was declared illegal.
-
In 1963, at the height of its cause, he led, along with 250,000 others, a march through Washington in which he advocated, especially, to improve living conditions and the integration of the black population of the south of the country. In that peaceful protest, the largest the American capital has ever lived in, recited its famous "I have a dream" speech.
-
On October 14, 1964, at the age of 35, he received the Nobel Peace Prize (he is currently the youngest person to receive this distinction).
After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Luther King continued his fight for black -
he was killed at a Memphis motel by James Earl Ray.