35 Facts About Martin Luther King

1. Martin Luther King made our nation stronger because he made it better.

2. Martin Luther King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities.

3. Martin Luther King believed that capitalism could not adequately provide the basic necessities of many American people, particularly the African-American community.

4. In 1964, Martin Luther King urged his supporters "and all people of goodwill" to vote against Republican Senator Barry Goldwater for president, saying that his election "would be a tragedy, and certainly suicidal almost, for the nation and the world.

5. Dr Martin Luther King was a major inspiration along with the civil rights movement which inspired the Native American rights movement of the 1960s and many of its leaders.

6. At the reservation Dr Martin Luther King met with all the tribal leaders, and others on the reservation then ate with them.

7. Martin Luther King promptly responded and through his intervention the problem was quickly resolved.

8. Dr Martin Luther King assisted Native American people in south Alabama in the late 1950s.

9. Martin Luther King publicly discouraged it as a widespread practice, but acknowledged that it was sometimes necessary.

10. Martin Luther King struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury and courage.

11. Martin Luther King initially believed in and practiced self-defense, even obtaining guns in his household as a means of defense against possible attackers.

12. Martin Luther King was advised by the white activists Harris Wofford and Glenn Smiley.

13. Martin Luther King has become a national icon in the history of American liberalism and American progressivism.

14. Martin Luther King spent the remainder of his life attempting, unsuccessfully, to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had.

15. Martin Luther King was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.

16. Martin Luther King was using the alias Ramon George Sneyd on his way to white-ruled Rhodesia.

17. Martin Luther King was booked in Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

18. On March 29, 1968, Martin Luther King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black sanitary public works employees, who were represented by AFSCME Local 1733.

19. Martin Luther King felt that Congress had shown "hostility to the poor" by spending "military funds with alacrity and generosity.

20. Martin Luther King quoted from Henry George and George's book, Progress and Poverty, particularly in support of a guaranteed basic income.

21. Martin Luther King brought up issues of civil rights and the draft.

22. Martin Luther King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home.

23. Martin Luther King was criticized by many groups during the course of his participation in the civil rights movement.

24. Martin Luther King was displeased with the pace that President Kennedy was using to address the issue of segregation.

25. At the age of 25 in 1954, Martin Luther King was called as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

26. Martin Luther King married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama.

27. Martin Luther King continued to have lingering feelings toward the woman he left; one friend was quoted as saying, "Martin Luther King never recovered.

28. Martin Luther King once reproved another student for keeping beer in his room, saying they had shared responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race.

29. Martin Luther King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity.

30. At the age of 15, Martin Luther King passed the exam and entered Morehouse.

31. Martin Luther King became known for his public-speaking ability and was part of the school's debate team.

32. Martin Luther King lost his friend because the child's father no longer wanted the boys to play together.

33. Martin Luther King's parents were both African-American, and he had Irish ancestry through his paternal great-grandfather.

34. In 1968, Martin Luther King was planning a national occupation of Washington, DC, to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee.

35. Martin Luther King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.