U.S. Capitol - Dr Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King, Jr., born in 1929 to a family of pastors and civil rights leaders, received a B.A. degree from Morehouse College in 1948, a B.D. degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania in 1951, and a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1955. He returned to Montgomery, Alabama, to work for civil rights while serving as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Already a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he gained national recognition as a leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1957, he founded and was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He traveled extensively, giving over 2500 speeches, and wrote five books as well as numerous articles. During his 1963 incarceration in Alabama he wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." He planned drives in Alabama for the registration of African-Americans as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people, to whom he delivered his "I Have a Dream" address in 1963; and he counseled Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. His actions brought about consideration and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Dr. King was the youngest man to receive that honor. On April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, he was assassinated.