Martin Luther King was a clergyman and one of the most prominent members
of the civil rights movement.
He was born of January 15, 1929. He became famous in the 19500
and 1960-es through opposition to racial segregation in the USA. King
promoted non-violent methods of opposition such as boycotts or sit-ins.
In 1963 he helped organize March on Washington; the march drew
hundreds of thou-sands of civil rights supporters to Washington, D.C.,
for a mass rally. At this march he delivered his most celebrated speech.
He stressed the importance of non-violent protest and described a
possible future of racial harmony in the US. He said: "I still have a
dream. It is a dream deeply routed in the American dream: 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 charged by the color of
their skin but by the content by their character".
After this march Martin Luther King was put into jail; there he
wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" which he addressed to his
fellow clergymen. In this letter he defended the civil rights movement,
saying that without forceful actions like this march, equal rights for
black people would never be gained. He claimed "one who breaks an unjust
law must o it openly, lovingly." Such a person, King said, is showing
respect for law because he insists that law should be just.
In 1964 Martin Luther King received the Nobel Prize for peace.
He was assassinated by James Earl Ray in 1968. A national holiday
each January 15 commemorates his life.
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