“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
“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. gave his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in August, 1963, to a group of civil rights supporters at the March on Washington.
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This inspirational man who led the civil rights movement championing the cause to end segregation and fight racial discrimination is the first and only U.S. Citizen to have a national holiday named after him. He was guided by fighting for what was right, not what was popular.
King was the first black American to receive Time magazine’s Man of the Year honor in 1964, he also won the Nobel Peace Prize that same year. He was the youngest to win the award, upon receiving it, he announced that he would use the prize money to further the civil rights cause. King was instrumental in desegregating buses in Montgomery, Alabama in the mid-1950s. He helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and served as its first president in 1957.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
He graduated high school at the age of 15, received a B.A. from Morehouse College in 1948 and attended Boston University where he received his Ph.D. in systematic theology in 1955.
In 1960, he followed in the family footsteps and became pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. It is believed that he said he would not live to 40. Sadly, King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee in April of 1968 at the age of 39.
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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