Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an
American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the
African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to
secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has
become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two
Christian churches.[1] A Baptist minister,[2] King became a civil
rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus
Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts
led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I
Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the
civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest
orators in U.S. history.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace
Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial
discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent
means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his
efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a
religious perspective. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in
Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004;
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national
holiday in 1986.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.