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Eugenio Maria de Hostos

Patriot, educator, sociologist, philosopher, esayist, and novelist.  He was born in the municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, on January 11, 1839.
 
He did his first studies in Mayagüez and later went to Spain (Bilbao) for his secondary education.  Following his father’s desires, he went to Madrid to study law, but his constant activism in support of the politicalrights for Puerto Rico and the Spanish republican movement prevented him from pursuing his law degree.
 
 From Spain he went to New York, where he spent almost a year and fought alongside the Cubans in their struggle for independence.  Later, he undertook a journey throughout South America for more than three years to plead for the Cuban cause.  Wherever he went, he was regarded as a man ofintegrity, devoted to the service of humanity.
 
In Peru, he denounced the exploitation of the numerous Chinese laborers who had immigrated to that country.
 
In Chile, he advocated for the right of women to obtain a scientific education.  He was a member of the Academy of Letters of Santiago de Chile and published various writings, among them: a historical report on Puerto Rico; an essay onHamlet, by English playwright William Shakespeare (considered one of the best on this work in Spanish); and a critical biography of Placido, the Cuban poet.
 
In Argentina, he campaigned for the construction of the first railway route across the Andes, and the first train that crossed that mountain range bore the name Eugenio Maria de Hostos.
 
 He established his residence in Santo Domingo in1879. There he founded the first teachers school in 1880.  During the following nine years, he undertook an intense program of educational reforms in that country.  After the United States invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, he returned to the island.  He wanted to stir the spirit of his compatriots so that they could demand their rights; he founded the League of Puerto Rican Patriots and headed thefirst commission that went to Washington to seek recognition for the rights of Puerto Rico.  Nevertheless, all these efforts failed in the face of the firm decision by the North American government to retain the island as a colony and the lack of support from his compatriots.
 
It could be said that although Hostos published treatises, essays, two novels and numerous journalistic articles thatwere successful, his best work was his extraordinary life, clean, just, humanitarian and patriotic, that has placed him high among the great men of Latin America.  Eugenio María de Hostos died in 1903 in Santo Domingo, where he is buried.
 
                                    Biographical Data of Eugenio María de Hostos
                                    Institute of Hostosian Studies –University of Puerto Rico

Biography
Martin Luther King, Jr.

(January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther actedas co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was electedpresident of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born...