Fun Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Jr. was born Michael King Jr. His father renamed them both in 1934 after visiting German sites linked to the reformer Martin Luther.[1][3][4]
- King skipped the ninth grade and entered Morehouse College at 15, after passing an entrance exam the college opened to high school juniors during World War II.[1]
- At 13, King became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal.[1]
- Before college, King spent a summer picking tobacco on a Connecticut farm, his first trip to the integrated North, with wages going toward his Morehouse tuition.[1]
- The famous dream passage of King's 17-minute speech was not in his prepared text. Mahalia Jackson's shout, "Tell them about the dream," possibly prompted it.[1]
- King did not start out as a pacifist. Early on he practiced self-defense and even obtained guns, until pacifist advisers persuaded him to embrace nonviolent resistance.[1]
- Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. were born in the same year — 1929.[1][2][5][6]
- Martin Luther King Jr. was alive at the same time as James Joyce — their lives overlapped for 12 years (1929–1941).[1][2][7][8]
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.[1]
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Questions About Martin Luther King Jr.
When was Martin Luther King Jr. born?
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, and died on April 4, 1968.
How old was Martin Luther King Jr. at death?
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, and died on April 4, 1968, at age 39.
What was Martin Luther King Jr. known for?
Martin Luther King Jr. was known for: "I Have a Dream," civil rights leader. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.
Who was alive at the same time as Martin Luther King Jr.?
Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest contemporary was Pablo Picasso. Their lives overlapped for 39 years.
Sources
- Martin Luther King Jr. — Wikipedia. Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0
- Martin Luther King Jr. (Q8027) — Wikidata
- Martin Luther — Wikipedia
- Martin Luther (Q9554) — Wikidata
- Anne Frank — Wikipedia
- Anne Frank (Q4583) — Wikidata
- James Joyce — Wikipedia
- James Joyce (Q6882) — Wikidata
- Portrait: Martin Luther King, Jr..jpg — Wikimedia Commons. Bernie Faingold, Public domain