Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

Martin Luther King, Jr.was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-american Civil Rights Movement and  is best known for his role in the advancement of Civil Rights using Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

A Baptist Minister,Martin Luther King became a civil rights activist early in his career. Martin Luther King led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott  and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the US Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of Racial Segregation on the Public Transit System of Montgomery,Alabama.
The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks,an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling,Browder Vs Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional

Martin Luther King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington , where he delivered his " I Have a Dream'' speech and established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.

On October 14, 1964,Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through Non-violence

Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis,Tennessee and there are allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting, and the jury of a 1999 civil trial found Loyd Jowers  to be complicit in a conspiracy against King.

US President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Martin Luther King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004