Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) will be known as one of, if not the most, influential Civil Rights Activists in the United States. Himself and many others during the Civil Rights Movement fought to end segregation that existed among white Americans and African Americans during the mid-1950s until the end of the 1960s. He gained a lot of respect from U.S. presidents and from international leaders. King attended meetings with President Richard Nixon, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and many of Gandhi's followers

As a Christian minister, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded peaceful protest. He encouraged and joined in on boycotts, marches and sit-ins. Although many law enforcement officers and vigilantes used force to disband civil rights protests, MLK and his followers refused to change their methods. Due to his involvements and actions, he was arrested thirty times in a ten year span. He also received numerous death threats, which resulted in violence to his family and home, and his eventual assassination in 1968.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated on the third monday of January every year as a national holiday. He only lived to the age of 39, but his fight against racism and segregation still goes on.

“I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."”

• Martin Luther King Jr., Washington D.C., 1963, “The March on Washington”