Dr Martin Luther King Jr

Why is Martin Luther King famous?

Martin Luther King Jr was an American campaigner for the fair and equal treatment of all people and an end to racial discrimination.

A brilliant and brave man and a brilliant speaker, he was the youngest-ever person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Top 10 facts

1. Martin Luther King Jr’s father was the pastor of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States of America.
2. Martin was a gifted student. He was awarded several university degrees and became a Doctor of Divinity.
3. He decided he wanted to become a minister and delivered his first sermon at his father’s church at the age of 18.
4. In December 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested for failing to give up her bus seat to a white man.
5. Martin Luther King was appointed president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which led the boycott of the Montgomery bus services. (A boycott is where you stop using goods or services to bring about a change.)
6. The bus boycott lasted 381 days at the end of which the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal.
7. Martin Luther King was a very brave man who believed in non violent protest. During the course of his campaign his house was bombed, he was arrested on numerous occasions and he was stabbed. Finally he was shot at the age of 39.
8. Dr King was a very powerful orator (speech maker). His most famous speech, I Have A Dream, was delivered to an audience of 250,000 people.
9. Following Martin Luther King’s murder a national day of mourning was declared in the USA. 
10. Martin Luther King Day, held on the third Monday of January, is now a public holiday in the USA.

Timeline

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Did you know?

• Martin Luther was born Michael Luther King but his father later changed both of their names to Martin.
• The original Martin Luther was a German Protestant who wanted to reform the Catholic Church.
• Martin Luther King was so clever that he was two years ahead at school and he started his college education at the age of 15.
• At age 35 he was the youngest-ever person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• He is recognised as one of the greatest speakers in American history.
• Over 750 streets in the United States are named after him.
• In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was declared a national holiday in the United States.
• More than 300,000 people marched alongside Dr King’s coffin.

Martin Luther King gallery:

• Martin Luther King
• With Malcolm X
• As Time Magazine's Man of the Year (Artwork Credit: Robert Vickrey)
• Some of the values MLK stood for
• The statue of Dr King in Washington DC is known as the Martin Luther King Memorial

Gallery

About

Martin Luther King was brought up in a Christian household and based many of his ideas about how people should treat each other on Christian teachings. His father was active in the civil rights movement and the young Martin was aware of the unfair treatment of black people from an early age. His religion also influenced his ideas about war and poverty; he protested against the Vietnam War and on behalf of poor people. He was also impressed by Mahatma Gandhi’s use of non violence in his campaign against British rule in India.

The southern United States where Martin Luther King was born commonly treated black people as being inferior to white people. As a result the condition of black people in those states was poor. Laws aimed at keeping black and white people apart meant that black people had poorer living conditions and schooling and had fewer rights than white people. Laws treated black people unfairly and prevented nearly all of them from having the vote, even in states where they formed the majority of the population. This meant that they had little political power and their interests were ignored. Because the laws had kept people apart, many white people believed they were superior to black people.

Although a civil rights campaign had been protesting against these injustices since before the First World War, only limited progress had been made. Martin Luther King’s involvement in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference marked him out from an early age as a gifted campaigner.

His intelligence, his speechmaking skills, his courage and his insistence on the use of non-violent means of protest such as marches, sit-ins and boycotts, helped to make civil rights the most important issue in American public life by the 1960s. New laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped to improve the situation of black people.

Martin Luther King’s achievements and abilities were admired and celebrated by people the world over. He received many awards for his courageous leadership and vision. His speeches and writings still have the power to inspire people today.

Famous friends

Rosa Parks (1913-2005) – a civil rights activist, Rosa grew up in the Southern United States and lived with her husband in Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery was a segregated city – black people and white people had to live separately.

Rosa travelled to work on the buses. Black people had to sit at the back of the bus in seats marked ‘For Colored”. On the 1 December 1955 a white man asked Rosa to give up her seat on the bus. Rosa refused and was arrested. She was fined $10. Rosa appealed to a higher court. In support of Rosa’s cause all the black people of Montgomery stopped using the buses. Martin Luther King became head of the Montgomery Improvement Society which helped lead the bus boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days at the end of which the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation was against the law.

Rosa received many threats as a result of her campaign but she remained strong. She was awarded the Congregational Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Related Videos

Just for fun...

• A quiz about Martin Luther King
• Travel back in time and play the role of a school newspaper reporter assigned to ride the Montgomery, Alabama bus system in 1955
• Create a window decoration inspired by Dr. King and the ideas he shared with others
• Print out some Martin Luther King Jr Day colouring pages
• Put online jigsaw puzzle pieces together to form a picture of the MLK Memorial in Washington DC

Kids' books about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the USA

Find out more about Dr. Martin Luther King 

• An introduction to Dr. Martin Luther King for KS1 children, on BBC Bitesize
• A BBC Newsround report looking back at the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
• Watch BBC resources about Martin Luther King, including videos of his speeches
• Listen to the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, then read an annotated version of MLK's famous "I Have a Dream" speech: compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images and find out more about the historical context of the words
• Martin Luther King facts for kids
• See videos about Martin Luther King's role as a civil rights leader and about the third Monday in January, Martin Luther King Jr Day, a national holiday in the USA
• A Martin Luther King biography for kids
• An animated film about Martin Luther King's life
• The National Museum of American History has a collection of objects from the civil rights movement and some non-violence activity suggestions and ideas
• A brief history of the US civil rights movement for children

Dr Martin Luther King: famous quotes

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

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

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. [...]  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

See for yourself

• Martin Luther King's childhood home, his church and his grave are open to visitors
• Read inspirational quotes from Dr King

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