Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Martin Luther King. Jr., (1929-1968) was one of the most influential African Americans and civil rights movement leaders. He graduated high school at the age of fifteen and continued his educational career with a doctorate in 1953. On December 1955, he accepted the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States. He led the bus boycott, which lasted 382 days. It was this boycott that resulted in the Supreme Court of the United States on December 21, 1956 to declare Negroes and whites to ride the bus as equals. His strength, courage, and commitment to the boycott didn't go without consequences. He was subjected to arrests, house bombs, and personal abuse. As President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that advocated civil rights movements, the ideals came from Christianity and techniques from Gandhi. King traveled over six million miles and gave over twenty five hundred speeches where there was injustice. He also authored five books and numerous articles. He directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 participants. King consulted with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lydon B. Johnson and was arrested twenty times, assaulted at least four times, and eventually awarded five honorary degrees, named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963. King was also the youngest man to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 4, 1968, where he was to lead a protest, he was assassinated on his balcony's motel room. His efforts and accomplishments are still remembered to this day.