Martin Luther King

• Martin Luther King, Jr. born in Atlanta, January 15, 1929. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role inthe advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King has become a national icon in the history ofmodern American liberalism.


• Starting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States' role in the Vietnam War. In an April 4, 1967 appearance at the New York City RiversideChurch—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".[91] He spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, insisting that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as anAmerican colony"[92]:107 and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today".[92]:102 He also argued that the country needed larger and broader moral changes:

•King, James Bevel, and the SCLC, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, for March 7, 1965. The first attempt to march on March7 was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has since become known as Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was a major turning point in the effort to gain publicsupport for the Civil Rights Movement, the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King's nonviolence strategy.


• In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive theNobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused hisefforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War.


• King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and...