Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Reverend. King was born on January 15th, 1929. The elder King had originally intended on naming his son Michael King, Jr., but a visit to Europe inspired him to name the child after the originator of the Protestant movement. While spending his childhood in Atlanta, King attended school at the Booker T. Washington High School. King attended college during the 1950s, first earning a degree in sociology from Morehouse, and later on a doctorate from Boston University.

Returning from school, King began preaching at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Among his influences, King was perhaps most profoundly affected by the successful philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi. King visited the Gandhi family in 1959, studying the non-violent practices of the Indian leader. King returned to America with a new sense of how he would approach resistance to the corrupt and oppressive government at home.

Martin Luther King Jr. saw his first real involvement in the Civil Rights Movement with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted for 385 days. King found himself in the thick of the controversy, his house even being firebombed. King himself was arrested during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The efforts culminated in a district court case overturning the Jim Crow laws regarding segregation on the public bus system.

King continued his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement with the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he would lead until his death. Perhaps King’s most contentious protests would come from his campaign in the town of Birmingham. Intensely segregationist, the Birmingham campaign caught nationwide attention. Shortly thereafter, King organized the famous March on Washington. King continued his campaign for several years, until his assassination on April 4th, 1968.