Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most important public figures in history. He is best known for his role in the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Narratives of his life show that he was a complicated, devoted, and highly intelligent man who lived a courageous, though short, life.
King was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. His father and mother lived in an area populated mostly by middle-class Black families. King’s father was a pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. The church and his father played a huge role in shaping King’s worldview, as he came to understand how powerful faith and religion could be in the Black community. He started getting involved in...