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Martin Luther King Jr. Facts

Martin Luther King Jr. Facts
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th, 1929 to Michael King Sr. his father, and Alberta Williams King, his mother. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, with the legal name of Michael King. In 1934 his father changed both of their names to Martin and added ‘Luther' in honor of a German reformer named Martin Luther. Martin Luther King Jr. had an older sister Willie Christine King and a younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams King. After he earned both a B.A. and B.Div. Degree he married Coretta Scott and had four children. King devoted his life to the civil rights movement and was a clergyman until his assassination in 1968 at the age of 39.
Interesting Martin Luther King Jr. Facts:
Martin Luther King Jr.'s father was a Baptist minister.
Martin left high school when he was 15 and enrolled at Morehouse College.
At the age of 19 Martin earned a B.A. in sociology from Morehouse College.
In 1951 Martin earned a degree from Crozer Theological Seminary.
Martin married Coretta Scott in 1953.
In 1954 Martin became a minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama.
Martin's house was bombed in 1956, the result of him leading a boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1957 Martin helped to form the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference).
In 1958 Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener while he was signing books on his book tour for Stride Toward Freedom. The woman who had tried to kill him that day was Izola Ware Curry.
In 1963 Martin was arrested and sent to jail over anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama. This was the same year he gave his famous speech ‘I Have a Dream' to 200,000 protesters during the March on Washington.
In 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to combat racial inequality without using violence. He was the youngest male to win the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of only 35.
Martin Luther King Jr. won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album in 1971. His album was called Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.
In 1974 Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother was murdered while attending church and playing the organ.
There are more than 700 streets in the United States named after Martin Luther King Jr. There are also many schools and other buildings named after him.
On April 4th, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed.
In 1969, James Earl Ray received a 99-year sentence after pleading guilty to Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder.
After his death Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as the Congressional Gold Medal.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day began to be celebrated in 1971 in many cities and states. In 1986 it became a federal holiday.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is located in Washington, D.C. in West Potomac Park.
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site (also known as the King Center) is located in Atlanta, Georgia.


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