Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., highly intelligent, well educated, and a

believer in the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, was the voice of the

civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

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“I have a dream,” announced Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in his most famous
speech. His dream was that one day all people would be treated equally, regardless of
their race, color, or religion. It was a dream to which he dedicated his life, and it
ultimately led to his murder.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a highly intelligent young man, and skipped several grades in
school before getting three university degrees and becoming a preacher at age twenty-
five. The year was 1954, and the civil rights movement was just gaining steam in the
United States.
As his fellow African-Americans were beaten or even killed for daring to try to vote or to
aspire to the same rights as white people, King became deeply involved in the civil rights
movement.
In 1955, he led a boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama - one of many
public transportation systems that required black people to sit at the back and give their
seats up for white people.
Dr. King helped organize other religious leaders into a powerful, united voice that
opposed racial discrimination, and demanded equal rights and justice. He adopted the
philosophy of the great civil rights leader Mahatma Gandhi, who taught that the way to