Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African-American minister, activist and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement during the 1950s-1960s. Today he is a human rights icon and the U.S. along with a few other nations celebrate his birthday, observed on the third Monday in January of each year. In the U.S. this observance is a federal holiday.

King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Ga. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948, from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951 and Boston University in 1955 with a Doctor of Philosophy. King married Coretta Scott in 1953 and the couple raised four children.

King’s chief stance was that of a nonviolent civil rights movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law.

In 1955 King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1957 he co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1963 King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, in which he delivered his now-famous "I Have a Dream" speech, one of the greatest speeches in American history.

King is the youngest person to receive the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. He received the award in 1964 for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through non-violent means. King also worked on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War. Read more about King’s philosophies, work and influence in magazines like Vibe, Essence, American Legacy and Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine.

On March 29, 1968 King was in Memphis, Tenn. to attend a rally for black sanitation workers represented by AFSCME who had been on strike for better wages and treatment. King spoke at the rally on April 3 with his "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop" speech, which would be the last of his career. The next evening King was shot while he stood on the balcony of the Loraine Motel; he died an hour later at St. Joseph’s Hospital after emergency surgery was performed.

In response to King’s assassination many riots took place in more than 100 cities. Presidential nominee Robert Kennedy pleaded with King supporters to continue the late activist’s lead by adhering to non-violence. In 1969 James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to murdering King but after being sentenced to a 99-year sentence recanted and spent the rest of his life trying to get a trial. There have been many conspiracy theories on the murder of King. Read more about the many conspiracy theories in magazines like Time and The Economist.

King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. Though a campaign for a federal holiday in King’s honor began shortly after his assassination, it wasn’t until 1983 that President Ronald Regan signed the holiday into law; the holiday was first observed in 1986. It was another 20 years, in 2006, before all 50 states officially observed the holiday for the first time.