America remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most important figures in the country’s history, every January. King Jr.’s life was tragically cut short after he was gunned down by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a national holiday in 1986.
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Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. gestures during a speech at a political rally in Montgomery, Ala., in 1966. In that same year King launched a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment and schools in Chicago.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights marchers head for Montgomery, Alabama’s capitol, March 21, 1965, during a five day, 50 mile walk to protest voting laws.
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** FILE ** Martin Luther King Jr., second right, and SCLC aides Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Ralph Abernathy return to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis to strategize for the second Sanitation Workers march led by King in this April 3, 1968 file photo. King was shot dead on the balcony April 4, 1968.
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King was arrested several times during his protests, many of which were peaceful sit-ins. King visited India and studing Mohandas Ghandi’s philosophy of non-violence in 1959.
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This undated file photo shows Rosa Parks riding on the Montgomery Area Transit System bus. Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, was a major player in the push for equality alongside King.
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King is seen backstage at Madison Square Garden with Harry Belafonte.
Courtesy of Harry Belafonte
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King was named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year and appeared on the cover in January 1964. During that same year King would be invited to the White House to attend the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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One of King’s most famous works, Letter from Birmingham Jail, was written during his 11-day incarceration in 1963, the same year he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King lead freedom marchers in Montgomery, Ala. in 1965, the same year President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and associates lead a procession behind the casket of Jimmy Lee Jackson during a funeral service at Marion, Ala, on March 1, 1965.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, sit with three of their four children, Martin Luther King III, 5, Dexter Scott, 2, and Yolanda Denise, 7, in their Atlanta, Ga, home. Coretta Scott King turned a life shattered by her husband’s assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rep. Adam Clayton Powell are photographed together in 1965. King turned his focus from civil rights to more socioeconomic issues in 1965.
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, chats with his wife, Coretta, left, and civil rights champion Constance Baker Motley before the start of an S.C.L.C. banquet in Birmingham, Ala.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes his last public appearance at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968. The following day King was assassinated on his motel balcony. King would deliver his “I’ve been to the mountaintop speech” before being tragically gunned down.
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King is seen with Bayard Rustin, the civil rights activist who helped organize the rally that featured King’s famous “I have a dream” speech.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is shown at a press conference in Atlanta, Ga., in 1967. King spent four days in a Birmingham jail for demonstrating without a permit. He would turn his focus to jobs and freedom for the poor of all races that year.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., third from right and his wife, Coretta King, lead off the final lap to the state capitol at Montgomery, Ala. Thousands of civil rights marchers joined in the walk, which began in Selma, Ala., on March 21, demanding voter registration rights for African-Americans.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. waves to the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial before his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on Aug. 28, 1963.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on this Aug. 28, 1963.
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