Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nota 1 (Atlanta, 15 de enero de 1929 – Memphis, 4 de abril de

1968) fue un pastor estadounidense de la iglesia bautista1 que desarrolló una labor
crucial en Estados Unidos al frente del Movimiento por los derechos civiles para los
afroamericanos y que, además, participó como activista en numerosas protestas contra
la Guerra de Vietnam y la pobreza en general.

Por esa actividad encaminada a terminar con la segregación estadounidense y la

discriminación racial a través de medios no violentos, fue condecorado con el Premio
Nobel de la PazNota 2 en 1964. Cuatro años después, en una época en que su labor se
había orientado especialmente hacia la oposición a la guerra y la lucha contra la
pobreza, fue asesinado en Memphis, cuando se preparaba para liderar una
manifestación.Nota 3

Martin Luther King, activista de los derechos civiles desde muy joven, organizó y llevó
a cabo diversas actividades pacíficas reclamando el derecho al voto, la no
discriminación y otros derechos civiles básicos para la gente negra de los Estados
Unidos. Entre sus acciones más recordadas están el boicot de autobuses en
Montgomery, en 1955; su apoyo a la fundación de la Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLS), en 1957 (de la que sería su primer presidente); y el liderazgo de la
Marcha sobre Washington por el Trabajo y la Libertad, en agosto de 1963, al final de la
cual pronunciaría su famoso discurso "I have a dream" (‘yo tengo un sueño’), gracias al
cual se extendería por todo el país la conciencia pública sobre el movimiento de los
derechos civiles y se consolidaría como uno de los más grandes oradores de la historia
estadounidense.2

La mayor parte de los derechos reclamados por el movimiento serían aprobados

legalmente con la promulgación de la Ley de los derechos civiles y la Ley del derecho
al voto.

King es recordado como uno de los mayores líderes y héroes de la historia de Estados
Unidos, y en la moderna historia de la no violencia. Se le concedió a título póstumo la
Medalla Presidencial de la Libertad por Jimmy Carter en 1977 y la Medalla de oro del
congreso de los Estados Unidos en 2004. Desde 1986, el Día de Martin Luther King Jr.
es día festivo en los Estados Unidos.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968), was an American Baptist
minister, activist, humanitarian, 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 based on his Christian beliefs.

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 (SCLC) in
1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962
struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia (the Albany Movement), and helped
organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that attracted national
attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also
helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I
Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest
orators in American history.

On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial
inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to
Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to
Chicago to work on segregated housing. In the final years of his life, King expanded his
focus to include poverty and speak against the Vietnam War, alienating many of his
liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the
Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee.
His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. 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.

King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the
Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a holiday in
numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.
Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in
Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on
the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but
later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as
pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has
served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-
pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high
school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a
distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had
graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in
Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was
awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at
Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree
in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon
intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. King, both a Baptist
minister and civil-rights activist, had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States,
beginning in the mid-1950s. Among many efforts, King headed the SCLC. Through his activism,
he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the
South and other areas of the nation, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, among several
other honors. King was assassinated in April 1968, and continues to be remembered as one of
the most lauded African-American leaders in history, often referenced by his 1963 speech, "I
Have a Dream."