Martin Luther King Jr.

(1929-1968) American black minister, Nobel Peace Prize winner, one of the main leaders of the American black movement for equality of rights and the non-violent resistance against racial oppression.

Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta on January 15th, 1929. At the age of seventeen he became an ordained Baptist Minister. Afterward he became a leader who was very respected. He adopted the fight against racial segregation. His philosophy was based on non-violence. A philosphy similar to Gandhi.

In 1955, King was invited to become the head of a movement to boycott Montgomery's buses in protest against the application of racial segregation on public transport. Martin Luther King was arrested, imprisoned and received numerous death threats.

The boycott came to an end in 1956 thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court forbidding any segregation on the city's public transport. It was the first obvious victory of non-violent action.

In 1963, Martin Luther King steered an important campaign in favour of civil laws and of the improvement of the living conditions of the Blacks in the South. Peace Prize Winner in 1964, he was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4th, 1968.