Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and civil rights leader who became the most prominent figure in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, advocating nonviolent resistance to racial injustice.
King rose to prominence leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-56, which followed Rosa Parks' arrest, and went on to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to coordinate civil rights activities across the South.
His 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech, delivered during the March on Washington, became one of the most famous speeches in American history, calling for racial equality and an end to segregation.
King's advocacy helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968.