Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr was born on January 15th, 1929, becoming one of the most famous civil rights leaders in the 1900s. He has had multiple memorable, but his most well-known was on August 26, 1963, when he gave his famous ‘I had a dream’ speech. MLK Day became an official holiday during 1983 when President Ronald Reagan signed the event to be an official federal holiday. The holiday does not land during Kings’ speech or during the days of the Montgomery bus boycott, but instead it marks the hero’s birthday.
King was a civil rights activist and leader who had beliefs of equality and the end of segregation, the end of the conflict between the Whites and Blacks of the community. MLK used methods of nonviolence and overcame racial injustices and ended segregation laws. Martin was a Minister. He believed in peaceful protest and did not condone violence and his assassination changed everyone’s’ response. People started rioting, mostly in Chicago. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4th, 1964, while he was supporting a march of workers on strike on the 2nd floor balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. James fled the states but was later captured in the United Kingdom on the 8th of June 1968. The assassination of a leader and the capture of a murderer changed so little but changed so much.
