Martin Luther King, Jr. Note 1 (Atlanta, January 15, 1929-Memphis, April 4, 1968)
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was an American pastor of the Baptist Church who developed a crucial role in the United States at the head of the civil rights movement for African Americans and who also participated as an activist in numerous protests against the Vietnam War and poverty in general.

For that activity aimed at ending American segregation and racial discrimination through non-violent means, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize No. 2 in 1964. Four years later, at a time when his work had been especially focused toward opposition to war and the fight against poverty, was murdered in Memphis as he prepared to attend an informal dinner of friends.Note 3Martin Luther King, a civil rights activist from an early age, organized and carried out various peaceful activities demanding the right to vote, non-discrimination and other basic civil rights for black people in the United States. Among his most remembered actions are the bus boycott in Montgomery, in 1955; his support for the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 (of which he would be its first president); and the leadership of the March on Washington for Work and Freedom, in August 1963, at the end of which he would deliver his famous "I have a dream" speech, public awareness of the civil rights movement and would consolidate itself as one of the greatest speakers in American history.2 Most of the rights claimed by the movement would be legally approved with the promulgation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Right of

The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. is considered one of the twentieth-century magnicides.3 King is remembered as one of the greatest leaders and heroes in American history, and in the modern history of nonviolence. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter in 1977 and the Gold Medal of the United States Congress in 2004. Since 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a public holiday in the United States.
