Martin Luther King Jr., born on this day in 1929, was an American Christian minister and activist who became one of the most visible leaders of the U.S. civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

On October 14th, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize the Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War.

For his activism, King was the target of multiple assassination attempts, arrested 23 times, and surveilled and harassed by the U.S. government. In particular, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover targeted by Dr. King by making him a target of COINTELPRO, a secret program where FBI agents spied on, infiltrated, and attempted to discredit "subversive" political movements.

In 1968, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice. King traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights" for poor Americans.

Before the plans for the march could come to fruition, however, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while supporting striking black sanitation workers. James Earl Rey was convicted for the murder, but speculation of government involvement has persisted for decades after his death.

"I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

  • MLK Jr.

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