Martin Luther King, Jr. (Life &Times)

Martin Luther King (1929-1968) was the dominant force in the civil rights movement in the decade before his death. With his genius for rhetoric and his passionate advocacy of non-violent protest, King, like Gandhi, is a modern icon of the possibilities of political activism. He was at the center of many of the key events in the struggle for equal rights for non-whites in America. He organized the boycott of the (segregated) buses of Montgomery, Alabama; was arrested for his role in mass protest in Birmingham; and was a keynote speaker, delivering his famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech, at the historic March on Washington. He was Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1963, and a few months later became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. From the mid-1960s until his assassination in 1968, King widened his political concerns to protest against the Vietnam War and the evils of poverty. His birthday is now a national holiday in the United States.