*Martin Luther King JR

(Atlanta, 15 de enero de 1929 –  Memphis 4 de abril de 1968)

By:Edgar Andreé Toledo TorresVanessa García Menchú

A lie cannot live. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Martin Luther King Jr, was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience.

• King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president.

• King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites.

• Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's success with non-violent activism, King had "for a long time wanted to take a trip to India". With assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee, he was able to make the journey in April 1959.

• Another influence for King's non-violent method was Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience, which King read in his student days influenced by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system

• Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956 he said that he was undecided as to whether he would vote for Adlai Stevenson.

• March on Washington, 1963 was one of the biggest steps towards improvement of the life of African Americans, also called, Black Americans who were treated as downtrodden by the White Americans.

• The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955 started in December in the year 1955. It was indeed a very crucial step towards the betterment of “blacks. "The main and the crucial role in the entire Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955 was initiated by Rosa Parks.

• The boycott was organized for 5th December 1955, Monday. The organization named Montgomery improvement Association was created and King was the President of this association.

• Rosa Parks is primarily seen as the main protagonist of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955. Most of the people believe that the boycott movement was not pre-planned and it just occurred immediately. Rosa Parks had not pre-planned to refuse to get down of the bus and did so in order to rest her tiring feet after the day long work.

• On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, urged and planned by Nixon and led by King, soon followed. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.

• King was arrested during this campaign, which concluded with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.

• Martin Luther King Jr. was the person who has spent his whole life in struggling for Civil Rights of black people. He was of the view that the objective of any protest can be better achieved through peaceful means rather than shedding blood of people

• King and the SCLC were driving forces behind intense demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964. The movement marched nightly through the city and suffered violent attacks from white supremacists. Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed.

• In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Rev.

• King, representing the SCLC, was among the leaders of the so-called "Big Six" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963.

• Acting on James Bevel's call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, King, Bevel, and the SCLC, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize the march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators.

• King's main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the U.S. Just days after King's assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.Title VIII of the Act, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibited discrimination in housing and housing-related transactions on the basis of race, religion, or national origin later expanded to include sex, familial status, and disability.

• Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of racial equality and civil rights in 1964. King is remembered as one of the greatest leaders and heroes of American history, and in the modern history of nonviolence. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal of the United States in 2004. Since 1986, the Martin Luther King Day is a holiday in the United States.

• I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

• Martin Luther King Jr. Capital Memorial would be the most befitting homage to the greatest champion of human rights movement. The Capital Memorial is the best way to make the dream and ideology propagate among the people of the present age

• On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was killed by a white segregationist on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis His last words on that balcony were directed to musician Ben Branch, who was going to perform that night at a public meeting would attend Martin Luther, His fanatical services in the field of Human Rights were given recognition even after his death and many awards or prizes were showered on him posthumously.

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is celebrated worldwide in order to pay tribute to his hard work in the field of Civil Rights and Human Rights. In United States celebrate it as a federal holiday on every third Monday of every January which is nearby 15 January the day on which this famous personality opened his eyes.

“Thanks for your attention”