KING, MARTIN LUTHER, JR.

born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee Martin Luther King, Jr. eloquent black Baptist minister who led the civil-rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His leadership was fundamental to that movement's success in ending the legal segregation of blacks in the South and other portions of the United States. King rose to national prominence through the organization of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, promoting nonviolent tactics such as the massive March on Washington (1963) to achieve civil rights. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. The U.S. Congress voted to observe a national holiday in his honour, beginning in 1986, on the third Monday in January.