20 Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many US cities.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s father instructed him that Martin Jr.

At Penn, King took courses with William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F Flower, a professor of philosophy.

In Boston, King befriended a small cadre of local ministers his age, and sometimes guest pastored at their churches, including Michael E Haynes, associate pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury.

The boycott lasted for 385 days, and the situation became so tense that Martin Luther King Jr.'s house was bombed.

Martin Luther King Jr., representing the SCLC, was among the leaders of the "Big Six" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28,1963.

The March, and especially Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected Martin Luther King Jr.'s evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with which he was affiliated.

King's stance on Vietnam encouraged Allard K Lowenstein, William Sloane Coffin and Norman Thomas, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 presidential election.

Criticism of Martin Luther King Jr.'s plan was subdued in the wake of his death, and the SCLC received an unprecedented wave of donations to carry it out.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy includes influences on the Black Consciousness Movement and civil rights movement in South Africa.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s work was cited by, and served as, an inspiration for South African leader Albert Luthuli, who fought for racial justice in his country during apartheid and was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Daughter Yolanda Martin Luther King Jr., who died in 2007, was a motivational speaker, author and founder of Higher Ground Productions, an organization specializing in diversity training.

However, his youngest child, Bernice Martin Luther King Jr., has said that he would have been opposed to gay marriage.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s faith was strongly based in the Golden Rule, loving God above all, and loving your enemies.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent thought was based in the injunction to turn the other cheek in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus' teaching of putting the sword back into its place.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s private writings show that he rejected biblical literalism; he described the Bible as "mythological", doubted that Jesus was born of a virgin and did not believe that the story of Jonah and the whale was true.

The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and Martin Luther King Jr., and bugged Martin Luther King Jr.'s rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country.

Garrow asserted that Martin Luther King Jr.'s supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt".