That changed the world

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Only the 3rd American whose birthday is commemorated

as a federal holiday, a distinction granted to Christopher Columbus and George Washington!

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He was a black Baptist minister and social activist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the US from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. The most influential leader in the African-American civil rights movement during the 1960s, using non violent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. He encouraged the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964, the Voting Rights Act 1965, Nobel Peace Prize 1964, and considered the most inspirational orator of his day.

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On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated while chatting to Reverend Billy Kyles on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was in Memphis to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers when a sniper struck him dead.  Later identified as James Earl Ray, a two bit escaped convict from Missouri prison. King was 39 years old.

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"I ask every citizen to reject the blind violence

that has taken Dr King."

President Lyndon Johnson

The Lorraine Motel where King was assassinated

Photo: Nobel Foundation/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain