Born January 15, 1929
Atlanta, Georgia

Died April 4, 1968
Memphis, Tennessee

Minister and civil rights leader

Martin Luther King Jr. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.

Martin Luther King Jr. led nonviolent protests during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He believed that the peaceful coordination of large groups of people could bring about change in society. Before the 1960s, blacks were segregated, separated from whites, especially in the South. Public facilities were divided into those for whites and those for blacks. Segregation applied to schools, bathrooms, neighborhoods, jobs, and even seats on buses and trains. Usually, black facilities were in much worse condition than those available to whites. In some areas, whites verbally and physically attacked blacks because of their ethnicity. During the 1960s, blacks and whites who opposed these practices started to demand an end to segregation and other types of...