Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of freedom. He had a very strong voice for everyone when he said those powerful words –“ I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

He was born January 15, 1929, at noon, on a Tuesday. Also, he was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Martin Luther King Jr. had two other siblings, Christine Farris King, and Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams King. He was called “M.L.” at home where he lived with his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and their boarders. His mother was a school teacher. The minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church was Martin Luther King Jr.’s father. His family believed strongly that everyone should treat everyone with respect regardless of their race.

He decided to become a minister when he was about nineteen like his father, so he attended Crozer Theological seminary in Pennsylvania. He learned about Mahatma Gandhi while he studied there. Henry David Thoreau who wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience, was also what Martin Luther King Jr. was interested in. Civil Disobedience stated that if enough people would follow their conscience and disobey unjust laws, they could bring about a peaceful revolution.

Martin Luther King Jr. met Coretta Scott in 1952, and married her a year later. They had four kids. Martin Luther King Jr. got his PhD in 1954 and accepted a job as a pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Dr. King is what he would then be known by. When Rosa Parks was arrested in1955, Martin started his civil rights movement. The African American residents of the community were asked by Martin Luther King Jr. to boycott the city buses by driving and walking instead. This boycott against buses lasted 381 days and ended when the United States Supreme Court declared that Alabama’s state and local laws that required segregation on buses were illegal.

In 1959 Mr. and Mrs. King took a trip to India. While he was there he studied Satyagraha, nonviolent persuasion in Gandhi’s view. He then made a decision to use this idea in his protest. He returned to America, and returned to his hometown and helped minister the church with his father. Dr. King was arrested in 1963 for an injunction that was issued which forbids any demonstrations, because he and his Freedom Fighters went to Birmingham to fight segregation laws. He was released and decided to use more peaceful demonstrations. The police tried to stop these demonstrations with water hoses, tear gas, and dogs. On August 28, 1963, 200,000 people went to Washington D.C. where they went in front of the Lincoln Memorial to hear Martin’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

In 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize because he "had contributed the most to the furtherance of peace among man.” To demand voting reforms, Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Selma Alabama, to Montgomery in 1965. This resulted as the most violent confrontation he had ever experienced. But his efforts were successful. African Americans were allowed to vote, the day of August 6, 1965, when the voting bill was passed.

Martin Luther King Jr. died on April 4, 1968 when he was shot.