Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was an American Baptist minister and civil rights leader who became the most prominent public figure of the movement against racial segregation and discrimination in the United States. Drawing on Christian teaching and Mahatma Gandhi philosophy of nonviolent resistance, he rose to national attention leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56 and went on to help organize major campaigns including the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his I Have a Dream speech, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, both of which contributed directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his leadership of the nonviolent civil rights movement. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968 while supporting a sanitation workers strike, and is commemorated in the United States with a national holiday in his honor.
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