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Martin Luther King Jr.

Original nameMartin Luther King Jr.

Leader of the U.S. civil-rights movement, speaker of "I Have a Dream"

Those Who Gave Power Back to the People · Revolution & Rights
United StatesCivil RightsNon-violenceRacial Equality

Who they are

The leader of the American civil-rights movement. Modeling himself on Gandhi’s non-violence, he led Black Americans in peaceful struggle against segregation and discrimination. In 1963, before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, he gave the speech "I Have a Dream," restating to the whole nation the promise it made at its founding — "all men are created equal." He drove the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and paid for it with his life, assassinated in 1968. He brought the ideal Jefferson wrote and Lincoln restated, two hundred years on, once more within reach of reality.

Primary sourcesThe "I Have a Dream" speechLetter from Birmingham Jail

Key stories

"I Have a Dream"

In 1963, before a quarter-million people at the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King spoke that dream: "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Standing beneath Lincoln’s statue, he carried on the very line from Jefferson to Lincoln — pushing the promise "all men are created equal," written for nearly two hundred years, step by step toward its true fulfillment.

Relationships

Mentor
🕊️Gandhi　directly inherited Gandhi’s non-violent struggle

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The lasting echo of "I Have a Dream"Martin Luther King’s "I Have a Dream" is one of the most famous speeches of the twentieth century, and the Civil Rights Act he drove changed America; the U.S. observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day in his memory.

Appears in

The Widening of Rights"I Have a Dream" and Mandela’s Forgiveness
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