Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement — a Baptist minister who employed Gandhi's nonviolent civil disobedience strategy. His leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), participation in the Birmingham campaign (1963), and 'I Have a Dream' speech at the March on Washington (August 28, 1963) catalyzed passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965). King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at age 35 — the youngest male Nobel Peace laureate. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover surveilled King extensively, wiretapping his phones and trying to destroy his reputation by exposing his personal life. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968 — one year after his increasingly radical speeches connecting civil rights to opposition to the Vietnam War and economic inequality. He was 39 years old.