Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the defining moral voice of the American civil rights movement, transforming a nation's conscience through the power of nonviolent protest. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, into a family of Baptist ministers, King earned a doctorate from Boston University before becoming pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He rose to national prominence by leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–56, a 381-day campaign that ended with the Supreme Court ruling segregated bus seating unconstitutional. As president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he orchestrated landmark demonstrations — most powerfully the March on Washington in August 1963, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" address to more than 250,000 people. His advocacy directly shaped the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at age 35, then the youngest recipient. Assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, King's legacy endures as a permanent challenge to injustice everywhere.