140 Fun Facts About Mlk Jr

What was Martin Luther King Jr.'s name at birth?

Michael Jr. was his birth name; his father, also a Michael, came home from a 1934 trip to Europe and changed both their names to Martin Luther.

Roughly how many people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom?

250,000 is the most widely cited estimate; organizers had aimed for at least 100,000, and the turnout made it the largest demonstration the capital had yet seen.

Who was the principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom?

Bayard Rustin ran the planning as deputy to A. Philip Randolph, who took the lead title because some leaders feared attacks on Rustin as a gay man and former Communist.

Which Indian leader's campaigns against British rule became the model for King's protest methods?

Mahatma Gandhi won King over in 1950, when a lecture on the Indian leader so electrified the seminary student that he went out and bought half a dozen books about him.

What prestigious award did Martin Luther King Jr. receive in 1964?

Nobel Peace Prize in hand at 35, King was then the youngest man to receive it, and he pledged the entire award of about $54,000 to the civil rights movement.

King was assassinated on the 40th birthday of which writer, who had once run the SCLC's New York office?

Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928, won the SCLC job in 1960 after staging a benefit revue, Cabaret for Freedom, to raise money for King's movement.

Which Scottish university accepted King for doctoral study before he chose to stay in the United States?

Edinburgh accepted King for postgraduate study in December 1950, but he enrolled instead at an American school whose philosophers he wanted to study under.

During the 1955 bus boycott, King was chosen to lead which newly formed organization?

The Montgomery Improvement Association elected King president on December 5, 1955, and ran the car pools and weekly mass meetings that kept the boycott going.

Which U2 song from 1984 was written as a tribute to King?

"Pride (In the Name of Love)" places the shooting in the early morning of April 4, though King was shot just after 6 p.m.; Bono has admitted the slip and sometimes sings 'early evening'.

In 1957 King flew to West Africa to watch which nation celebrate its independence from Britain?

Ghana became independent in March 1957, and its new prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah, invited King and his wife to the ceremony in Accra.

Which landmark speech did Martin Luther King Jr. give at the 1963 March on Washington?

"I Have a Dream" was partly improvised: toward the end King departed from his prepared text for its most famous passage, urged on by a gospel singer seated behind him.

Which Washington official publicly branded King 'the most notorious liar in the country' in 1964?

J. Edgar Hoover lashed out at a November 1964 press conference after King criticized the FBI's handling of civil rights cases; the bureau had been wiretapping King for a year.

Which U.S. president declared a national day of mourning after King's assassination?

Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Sunday, April 7, 1968, a national day of mourning for King and ordered flags on federal buildings flown at half-staff.

Which Buddhist monk did King nominate in 1967 for the same honor he had won three years earlier?

Thích Nhất Hạnh first met King in 1966; King's nomination called the exiled Vietnamese monk an apostle of peace, but the prize committee made no award that year.

At which Atlanta church was Martin Luther King Jr. co-pastor alongside his father?

Ebenezer Baptist Church had been led by King's grandfather and then his father; he joined as co-pastor in 1960, a move that also brought him closer to his movement's headquarters.

Which 1963 text answered white clergy who had called King's protests 'unwise and untimely'?

"Letter from Birmingham Jail" was begun in the margins of the newspaper that printed the clergymen's statement, then continued on scraps of paper until his lawyers could bring a pad.

The 1955 bus boycott King led began after which woman was arrested for refusing to give up her seat?

Rosa Parks, arrested on December 1, 1955, was no accidental rebel: she had long served as secretary of the local NAACP chapter, and the boycott began the following Monday.

Which U.S. president signed the bill creating a federal holiday in King's honor?

Ronald Reagan signed the bill on November 2, 1983, fifteen years after a congressman first proposed the holiday in the days following King's death.

What opened in 1991 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where King was shot?

The National Civil Rights Museum is built around a motel that once hosted stars such as Aretha Franklin; it went on renting rooms for nearly twenty years after the shooting before it was converted.

Coretta Scott was training for which career when she met King in 1952?

Concert singer was her goal as a conservatory voice student; she gave up the stage but later raised money for the movement with her Freedom Concerts.

Which King speech came exactly one year before his assassination?

"Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" was delivered on April 4, 1967; the backlash was swift, and the Washington Post wrote that King had diminished his usefulness to his cause and country.

Which Birmingham official turned fire hoses and police dogs on young marchers in May 1963?

Bull Connor had just lost a race for mayor and was refusing to leave office when he turned hoses and dogs on the marchers; the images shocked the country.

What was the final speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. the day before his assassination?

'I've Been to the Mountaintop' was delivered on April 3, 1968, in Memphis; King told the crowd he had 'seen the Promised Land' though he might not get there with them.

In 1966 King took the movement north with an open-housing campaign in which city?

The 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement demanded open housing; King moved into a West Side slum apartment and faced mobs he said were more hostile than any in Alabama.

Which landmark law was signed on August 6, 1965, months after the Selma marches?

The Voting Rights Act passed Congress within months of the Selma marches; it banned the literacy tests that had long been used to keep Black Southerners from registering.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., sits beside which body of water?

The memorial stands on the northwest shore of the Tidal Basin, next to the FDR Memorial, on a sightline between the Jefferson Memorial and the site of King's most famous speech.

King's doctorate was in which academic field?

Systematic theology was the field of his 1955 doctorate; a 1991 university inquiry found parts of the dissertation plagiarized but recommended that the degree stand.

Which magazine named Martin Luther King Jr. its Man of the Year for 1963?

Time made King its Man of the Year for 1963, the first Black American so honored, citing the Birmingham campaign and the March on Washington.

Which New England writer's essay on refusing to cooperate with unjust laws gripped King as a college freshman?

Henry David Thoreau chose jail over paying a tax he thought unjust; King was so moved by the essay that he reread it several times.

Troopers broke up the first 1965 Selma march after marchers crossed which landmark?

Marchers had just crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River when troopers charged about 600 of them with batons and tear gas on March 7, 1965, 'Bloody Sunday'.

King delivered his most famous speech at the March on Washington from the steps of which monument?

The Lincoln Memorial landing where King stood was engraved in 2003, the speech's 40th anniversary, so visitors can stand on the exact spot.

In 1958, King was stabbed in the chest with what while signing books in a Harlem store?

A letter opener, seven inches of steel, was driven into his chest by Izola Curry, a mentally ill woman; she was found unfit to stand trial and committed to a state hospital.

Which of these famous figures was born in 1929, the same year as King?

Anne Frank was born in June 1929, five months after King; the diarist's story feels a generation older than his, yet both would have turned 39 in 1968.

Who succeeded Martin Luther King Jr. as president of the organization he had led since 1957?

Ralph Abernathy, King's closest colleague since the Montgomery bus boycott, took over as the group's president in 1968 and carried out the Washington encampment King had planned.

The Montgomery bus boycott kept Black riders off the city's buses for which of these periods?

Just over a year: called as a one-day protest for December 5, 1955, the boycott was extended that same evening and held until December 20, 1956.

Where did Martin Luther King Jr. earn his doctorate?

Boston University drew King with two philosophers he wanted to study under; he began in 1951, and it was in Boston that he met his future wife.

Which book was King signing when he was stabbed in 1958?

"Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story", his memoir of the bus boycott, was newly published when he was stabbed; after weeks of recovery he said he bore his attacker no bitterness.

Which president dedicated the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall?

Barack Obama dedicated it on October 16, 2011; the ceremony had been set for the anniversary of the March on Washington until Hurricane Irene forced a delay.

Which gospel singer called out to King just before the improvised climax of his 1963 speech?

Mahalia Jackson, who had sung 'I've Been 'Buked and I've Been Scorned' earlier in the program, called out to King; the improvised passage that followed became the speech's most quoted part.

At which New York City venue did Martin Luther King Jr. give his notable speech against the Vietnam War?

King gave his major anti-war address at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights in April 1967; it cost him allies in the press and the White House who felt he should stick to civil rights.

King's older sister, Christine, went on to teach at which Atlanta women's college, her alma mater?

Spelman College gave Christine King her degree in 1948, on the same day her brother received his own; she later returned there as a professor of education.

The MLK Memorial's address, 1964 Independence Avenue, was chosen to honor which milestone?

The Civil Rights Act became law on July 2, 1964, at a signing King attended; the memorial's street number honors that year.

The statue of King at his Washington memorial is known by what name?

The Stone of Hope takes its name from his most famous speech, which promised to hew 'out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope'; the statue emerges from a split boulder.

King earned his bachelor's degree in sociology from which school?

Morehouse College admitted King at 15, after his junior year of high school, because the wartime draft had thinned its enrollment; he graduated in 1948.

At which airport was Martin Luther King Jr.'s confessed killer arrested two months after the shooting?

London Heathrow was where James Earl Ray was caught on June 8, 1968, two months into an international manhunt; he was extradited and pleaded guilty the following March.

King's father renamed himself and his son after attending a 1934 Baptist congress held in which country?

Germany hosted the 1934 Baptist World Alliance congress in Berlin; King Sr. came home that August and began changing his own name and his son's to Martin Luther.

Which college president, who later delivered King's eulogy, did King call his 'spiritual mentor'?

Benjamin Mays gave weekly chapel talks that King often followed up in the president's office, and the two stayed close for the rest of King's life.

Martin Luther King Jr. was elected student body president at which Pennsylvania seminary, graduating in 1951?

Crozer Theological Seminary had only a small minority of Black students when King arrived, yet he was elected student body president and graduated in 1951 as class valedictorian.

Which Montgomery congregation called the 25-year-old King as its pastor in 1954?

Dexter Avenue Baptist gave King a pulpit of his own in 1954, his first; he and his wife later called their second son Dexter after the church.

Which traditional wedding vow did Coretta Scott have removed from her 1953 ceremony with King?

To obey her husband was a promise she would not make, unusual for 1953; King's father performed the ceremony on the lawn of her parents' Alabama home.

As a boy, King watched his father walk out of an Atlanta store rather than move to the back to buy what?

Shoes were what they had come for; told to move to seats in the rear, his father said they would buy shoes sitting where they were or not at all, and led his son out.

The summer before college, King worked on a tobacco farm in which northern state?

In Connecticut that summer of 1944, picking tobacco near Hartford, King was amazed to eat in one of the city's finest restaurants; going home to segregation, he recalled, was a bitter feeling.

Which court ruling ended the Montgomery bus boycott by outlawing segregated city buses?

Browder v. Gayle, a federal suit brought by four Montgomery women, was affirmed by the Supreme Court in November 1956; the order reached Montgomery on December 20 and the boycott ended.

During the bus boycott, King was jailed in January 1956 over which alleged offense?

Speeding was the charge, 30 mph in a 25 mph zone, part of a police 'get tough' drive that ticketed and arrested the drivers of the boycott's car pools.

Which local activist urged and planned the Montgomery bus boycott King was chosen to lead?

E. D. (Edgar) Nixon, a Pullman porter and local NAACP leader, pressed Montgomery's ministers to act; King was pushed forward partly because he was new in town with fewer local ties.

King's October 1960 arrest at Rich's department store in Atlanta came while he was joining what?

A student sit-in at the store's segregated Magnolia Room led to his arrest; the students were soon freed, but a judge sent King to state prison over an old traffic case.

Which 1960 presidential candidate phoned Coretta after King was sent to a Georgia prison?

John F. Kennedy phoned her in sympathy while his brother Robert called Georgia officials to speed King's release; the gesture helped him win Black votes in a very close election.

What nickname was given to the May 1963 Birmingham marches that sent hundreds of students to jail?

The Children's Crusade was James Bevel's idea: with adults reluctant to risk jail and their jobs, he recruited students, and hundreds were arrested on the first day.

Which entertainer raised $50,000 in bail money while King was behind bars in the spring of 1963?

Harry Belafonte had gathered donors in his New York apartment before the campaign began; the money he raised kept the Birmingham protests going while their leader was locked up.

A May 1963 bomb hit which Black-owned Birmingham motel where King had kept his headquarters?

The A.G. Gaston Motel's Room 30 had been King's strategy headquarters; a bomb also hit his brother's home, and the president ordered federal troops into position near the city.

Malcolm X dismissed the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom with what mocking name?

The Farce on Washington was Malcolm X's label for a march he scorned as stage-managed, yet he went to Washington and watched it anyway.

Who represented SNCC among the 'Big Six' leaders of the March on Washington?

John Lewis, SNCC's 23-year-old chairman, was the youngest speaker; other leaders made him tone down a draft that called the administration's civil rights bill too little, too late.

In June 1964 King was arrested for asking to be served at a segregated motel restaurant in which Florida city?

St. Augustine was preparing to celebrate its 400th anniversary, and King's campaign used that spotlight; he was arrested on the steps of the Monson Motor Lodge.

King gave his "How Long, Not Long" speech at the end of the Selma march on the steps of what?

The Alabama State Capitol was the finish of a five-day, 54-mile walk; King spoke to some 25,000 people there, and that night Klansmen killed Viola Liuzzo as she drove marchers home.

What nickname did the second Selma march, on March 9, 1965, earn?

'Turnaround Tuesday' saw King lead marchers onto the bridge, kneel in prayer and turn back rather than defy a federal judge's order, angering activists who wanted to push on.

Which seminary student did King put in charge of SCLC's Operation Breadbasket in 1966?

Jesse Jackson, then 24, ran Breadbasket's boycotts to win jobs for Black workers; King praised his work, but in 1971 Jackson left to found his own group, Operation PUSH.

Which King lieutenant later served as U.N. ambassador and as mayor of Atlanta?

Andrew Young was named U.N. ambassador in 1977, resigned in 1979 after an unauthorized meeting with a PLO representative, and then won two terms as Atlanta's mayor.

King wrote his 1967 book Where Do We Go from Here in isolation on which island?

King spent early 1967 in a rented house in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, with no telephone, writing the book that made the case for a guaranteed income.

The Memphis sanitation strike began after two workers were crushed to death in what?

Echol Cole and Robert Walker, sheltering from rain in the back of their truck on February 1, 1968, were crushed when the garbage compactor malfunctioned; the strike began eleven days later.

Which slogan did striking Memphis sanitation workers carry on their placards in 1968?

"I Am a Man" was a demand to be treated as citizens by a city whose mayor, Henry Loeb, refused to recognize the workers' union.

At which Memphis venue did King deliver his final speech on April 3, 1968?

Mason Temple, headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, nearly missed him: ill and exhausted, King sent an aide to speak instead, then came when told the crowd wanted him.

King's last words, as recalled by an aide, asked Ben Branch to play which hymn?

"Take My Hand, Precious Lord" was his favorite hymn, and the request was honored days later, when it was sung at his funeral.

Which numbered room at the Lorraine Motel was King booked into when he was shot?

Room 306 opened onto the balcony where King paused to talk with colleagues in the parking lot below; the room has been preserved much as he left it.

James Earl Ray escaped a Missouri prison in 1967 by hiding in a truck carrying what?

Bread hid him: Ray crouched in a bread box on a delivery truck leaving the Missouri prison on April 23, 1967, seven years into a 20-year sentence for robbing grocery stores.

Three days after pleading guilty to King's murder in 1969, James Earl Ray did what?

Recanted his confession: Ray had taken 99 years rather than risk the electric chair, then wrote to the judge asking for a trial and spent the rest of his life seeking one.

Robert F. Kennedy broke the news of King's death in an improvised speech in which city?

Indianapolis heard the news from Kennedy himself: he told a largely Black campaign crowd that King had been killed and urged them not to answer with hatred.

What did Poor People's Campaign marchers name their six-week camp on the National Mall?

Resurrection City, a settlement of tents and shacks, held out through weeks of rain and mud until authorities shut it down on June 24, 1968.

King's mother Alberta was shot dead in 1974 while doing what at her Atlanta church?

Playing the organ during Sunday worship, Alberta King was shot by a young man from Ohio who declared that all Christians were his enemies; a deacon was killed as well.

Which of King's children was born in November 1955, weeks before the bus boycott began?

Yolanda was about ten weeks old when a bomb exploded at the family's home during the boycott; she and her mother, who were inside, were unhurt.

Which Stevie Wonder song was written to campaign for a national holiday honoring King?

'Happy Birthday' turned the holiday campaign into a pop anthem; Wonder also helped pay for a lobbying office, and the drive gathered more than six million signatures on petitions to Congress.

Which state lost the 1993 Super Bowl after its voters rejected a paid King holiday?

Arizona had been due to host Super Bowl XXVII in Tempe; after both 1990 ballot measures failed, the NFL moved the game to Pasadena, and voters approved the holiday in 1992.

Which awards ceremony was pushed back two days in April 1968 because of King's assassination?

The Academy Awards moved from April 8 to April 10, 1968, the day after King's funeral; many sporting events were postponed as well.

The sculptor of the statue at King's Washington memorial came from which country?

China was home to Lei Yixin; the memorial's planners found him at a sculpture symposium in Minnesota, where fellow sculptors pointed them his way.

The Embrace, a Boston Common sculpture honoring King and Coretta, depicts what?

Four intertwined arms re-create a hug the couple shared in 1964, lifted from a news photograph; rather than whole figures, sculptor Hank Willis Thomas showed only their arms and hands.

A statue of King stands above the main entrance of which London church?

Westminster Abbey unveiled ten statues of 20th-century martyrs above its west door in 1998; King stands there with figures such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Oscar Romero.

King persuaded which actress not to quit her 1960s TV series?

Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, recalled King telling her she could not leave: it was the only show he and his wife let their children stay up to watch.

Which segregationist governor refused to protect the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers in 1965?

George Wallace had forbidden the march and sent state troopers to stop it; in the end the Alabama National Guard was put under federal command to guard the route.

After King's 1958 stabbing, his surgeon said the blade sat so close to his aorta that what would have killed him?

A sneeze would have punctured his aorta, the surgeon told him: the blade's tip was touching it, and his whole chest had to be opened to take it out.

At age 10, King sang with his church choir at the Atlanta premiere of which 1939 film?

Gone with the Wind's 1939 Atlanta premiere had the boy King in his church choir, dressed as a slave, singing for an all-white audience.

King famously described riots as "the language of" whom?

'The unheard' was his phrase: King still called rioting 'self-defeating and socially destructive', but blamed it on economic injustice nobody had addressed.

After Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in 1958, surgeons said which everyday reflex would have killed him?

A sneeze would have driven the blade into his aorta, his surgeons said after more than two hours in the operating room. King retold the story in the last speech of his life.

Which Oscar-winning actress had a hospital bill for her birth paid by the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.?

Julia Roberts was born to parents whose racially integrated acting school had taught the King children. In gratitude, and knowing the couple were short of money, Mrs. King settled the bill.

Before advisers talked him out of it, Martin Luther King Jr. had his Montgomery home protected by what?

Armed guards watched the house, and King owned a handgun, until pacifist advisers convinced him that a movement built on nonviolence could not be defended with guns.

In which format did a 1957 guide to nonviolence retell the Montgomery bus boycott and Martin Luther King Jr.?

A comic book, priced at ten cents and produced for free by the studio of cartoonist Al Capp, took the story to readers a pamphlet would never reach. An Arabic edition later reached democracy activists in the Middle East.

Which singer is heard on Pride (In the Name of Love), the 1984 hit honoring Martin Luther King Jr.?

Bono wrote the words after reading a biography of King, and has since said he wishes he had finished them properly. He called the lyrics simple sketches that U2 never developed.

King County, renamed for Martin Luther King Jr. instead of a slaveholding vice president, contains which major city?

Seattle sits in a county first named for William R. King, a slave owner elected vice president in 1852. County leaders switched namesakes in the 1980s and later replaced the crown logo with the civil rights leader's face.

Angered by criticism of his agency, which official called Martin Luther King Jr. a notorious liar in 1964?

J. Edgar Hoover lashed out after King faulted the FBI's record on civil rights cases. At about the same time, the bureau mailed King an anonymous package meant to push him toward suicide.

Which president took a public oath of office on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.?

Barack Obama rested his hand on the two stacked Bibles at the public ceremony of his second inauguration. For the private oath a day earlier he used a Bible from his wife's family.

Which entertainment award did Martin Luther King Jr. win posthumously in 1971, for a recorded anti-war sermon?

A Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording went to Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam, three years after his death. It was his only win among several Grammy nominations for recorded speeches.

Which British actor played Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, a 2014 film directed by Ava DuVernay?

David Oyelowo had to deliver rewritten speeches, because the rights to King's real words were licensed to other studios. DuVernay drafted new lines that echoed the originals.

In which European city did Martin Luther King Jr. accept his most famous international honor in December 1964?

Oslo, Norway presents this one honor each December, while its sister awards are handed out in Sweden. On the way there King stopped in London to preach at St Paul's Cathedral.

Which singer and actor raised bail money for the 1963 Birmingham campaign of Martin Luther King Jr.?

Harry Belafonte raised $50,000 to free jailed protesters and also helped support King's family, since the preacher earned only about $8,000 a year. The two had met in Harlem in 1956.

Which aide to Martin Luther King Jr. later became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta?

Andrew Young was with King in Memphis on the day of the assassination. President Carter later sent him to the UN, and he went on to help bring the 1996 Olympics to his city.

A statue of Martin Luther King Jr. stands among ten modern martyrs above the west door of which London church?

Westminster Abbey unveiled the ten statues in 1998, filling niches that had stood empty since the 15th century. King stands alongside figures such as Oscar Romero and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

A 1999 Gallup list of the century's most admired people put Martin Luther King Jr. second to whom?

Mother Teresa topped the list of 18 names, and King finished ahead of presidents, a pope and Albert Einstein. Gallup built the ranking from a fresh poll plus its yearly most-admired surveys.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on which Monday of January, close to his January 15 birthday?

Third is the rule, so the holiday can fall anywhere from January 15 to January 21. In most years it misses his actual birthday.

Since a 1994 act of Congress, Americans are urged to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day doing what?

Community service became the holiday's official purpose under the King Holiday and Service Act, signed by Bill Clinton. The only other national day of service marks September 11.

Peace activists in 1967 urged Martin Luther King Jr. to run for president alongside which bestselling physician?

Benjamin Spock, whose baby-care manual sat in millions of homes, was pressed to be King's running mate on an anti-war ticket. Both men declined, though Spock ran for president himself in 1972.

Martin Luther King Jr. skipped a grade at a segregated high school named for which famous Black educator?

Booker T. Washington High opened in 1924 as the first public high school for Black students in Atlanta. King skipped ninth grade and left for college at just 15.

In March 1957 Martin Luther King Jr. flew to Africa to watch which nation celebrate independence from Britain?

Ghana invited King through its new prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah, and he wept as the Union Jack came down at midnight. At a reception there he met Vice President Richard Nixon.

For which magazine did Martin Luther King Jr. write a monthly advice column on marriage and morals in 1957 and 1958?

Ebony readers sent him questions on infidelity, birth control and even atomic weapons testing. He gave the column up on his doctor's advice while recovering from a stabbing.

Alex Haley conducted the longest interview Martin Luther King Jr. ever gave, published in 1965 by which magazine?

Playboy had launched its interview series in 1962, with Haley questioning Miles Davis. A 2023 biography argued that Haley embellished some of King's answers.

Which nation's public radio aired five 1967 lectures by Martin Luther King Jr., published as The Trumpet of Conscience?

Canada's CBC invited him to give its Massey Lectures, a yearly series named for a former governor general. The talks went out in November and December, a few months before his death.

The man who punched Martin Luther King Jr. twice during a 1962 convention speech belonged to which extremist group?

American Nazi Party member Roy James struck him in the face as he spoke. King did not defend himself, and instead talked calmly with his attacker.

Which folk singer sang We Shall Overcome to a 1957 audience that included Martin Luther King Jr.?

Pete Seeger performed it at the Highlander school for activists, and King remarked on the drive to his next stop how much the tune had stuck with him. It soon became the movement's anthem.

Which slogan entered the civil rights movement on a 1966 Mississippi march that Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead?

Black Power became a rallying cry when Stokely Carmichael shouted it to a crowd in Greenwood. King opposed the slogan, worried that it suggested violence and separatism.

Which North Carolina senator led a 1983 filibuster against a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.?

Jesse Helms handed the Senate a 300-page document alleging that King had communist associations. The bill passed anyway, by 78 votes to 22.

Which rap group's protest track attacked Arizona for refusing to observe a holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.?

Public Enemy frontman Chuck D wrote By the Time I Get to Arizona after the governor cancelled the state's King holiday. Its violent music video drew criticism from King's own widow.

Which singer had a 1968 hit with Abraham, Martin and John, a tribute that names Martin Luther King Jr.?

Dion was a recovering heroin addict who had turned to acoustic folk when writer Dick Holler and his producer brought him the ballad. It mourns four assassinated Americans, beginning with Lincoln.

A 1960 newspaper advert defending Martin Luther King Jr. led to which landmark Supreme Court ruling on libel?

New York Times v. Sullivan began when a Montgomery police commissioner sued over small errors in the ad, such as how often King had been arrested. The 1964 ruling made libel far harder for officials to prove.

Which song by Common and John Legend, written for a 2014 film about Martin Luther King Jr., won an Oscar?

Glory won Best Original Song at both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes in 2015. The pair performed it at the Oscars on a set built to look like the bridge at Selma.

Which New England writer's 1849 essay on resisting unjust government shaped the thinking of Martin Luther King Jr.?

Henry David Thoreau argued that paying taxes to a government in the wrong made decent people partners in its injustice. King took from the essay the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.

Which activist's shooting on a solo 1966 walk to Jackson led Martin Luther King Jr. to help finish the march?

James Meredith, the first Black student at the University of Mississippi, was wounded by a sniper on his second day. He recovered in time to rejoin the marchers before they reached the state capital.

Decades after his death, a university inquiry found that the doctoral thesis of Martin Luther King Jr. contained what?

Plagiarized passages made up major portions of the thesis, the committee found. The university nonetheless declined to revoke his doctorate, saying the work made an intelligent contribution to scholarship.

Which rabbi answered a 1965 call from Martin Luther King Jr. and joined him on the march from Selma?

Abraham Heschel, a Polish-born philosopher, walked in the march that finally reached Montgomery. He said afterwards that marching had felt like praying with his legs.

Which 1963 book of sermons did Martin Luther King Jr. begin drafting during fifteen days in a Georgia jail?

Strength to Love took shape in a cell he shared with a fellow minister after a prayer vigil outside Albany City Hall. His publisher had been waiting for the collection since 1957.

Which organizer ran the Atlanta headquarters for Martin Luther King Jr. before advising the students who founded SNCC?

Ella Baker urged the students to share leadership among the group instead of relying on one charismatic figure. She had earlier spent years building up branches of the NAACP.

Alfred Daniel King, younger brother of Martin Luther King Jr., was found dead in 1969 in what setting?

His swimming pool was where the pastor was found, fifteen months after his brother was killed, and the death was listed as an accidental drowning. His widow never accepted that verdict.

From the pulpit of which church did Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his final Sunday sermon in March 1968?

Washington National Cathedral heard him preach on March 31, four days before he was killed. A memorial service for him was held in the same building within days of his death.

Which fraternity, founded at Cornell in 1906, initiated Martin Luther King Jr. while he was a graduate student?

Alpha Phi Alpha is the oldest intercollegiate fraternity founded for Black men, with Thurgood Marshall, Duke Ellington and Jesse Owens among its members. King joined through its Sigma chapter in June 1952.

Which Birmingham pastor, a survivor of a 1956 Christmas bombing, drew Martin Luther King Jr. to the city in 1963?

Fred Shuttlesworth lived through a bomb that exploded under his parsonage and went on confronting segregation in the city. Its international airport was named in his honor in 2008.

Which white minister and pacifist rode beside Martin Luther King Jr. on the first desegregated bus in Montgomery?

Glenn Smiley, sent by the Fellowship of Reconciliation to advise the boycott, asked for the seat as his only salary. He had helped persuade King that complete nonviolence could work.

The FBI justified its 1963 surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. by citing his friendship with which New York attorney?

Stanley Levison began by raising funds for the Montgomery bus boycott and refused payment for his years of advice. The bureau believed he was a Communist agent steering King.

Which NAACP honor for outstanding achievement went to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957, after the Montgomery bus boycott?

Spingarn Medal winners before him included the singer Marian Anderson and, one year earlier, Jackie Robinson. The citation praised King as a dedicated and selfless clergyman.

Which historian won a Pulitzer for Parting the Waters, opening a trilogy on the era of Martin Luther King Jr.?

Taylor Branch spent 24 years on the three volumes, finishing in 2006. The opening book shared the 1989 history prize with a study of the Civil War.

Which modernist architect designed the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, the only public library of his career?

Mies van der Rohe gave the capital a four-story box of steel and glass, completed in 1972. It is also the only building he designed for the District of Columbia.

The doctoral thesis of Martin Luther King Jr. compared how Henry Nelson Wieman and which theologian conceived of God?

Paul Tillich, counted among the foremost Protestant thinkers, was someone King had not studied closely until he chose the topic in 1953. The thesis faulted his idea of God as too abstract and impersonal.

Which teacher, hailed as the Mother of the Movement, directed education for the group led by Martin Luther King Jr.?

Septima Clark had pioneered citizenship workshops at the Highlander school. King's group modeled its own program on them when the state forced Highlander to close in 1961.

On a five-week tour of India in 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. discussed nonviolence in Delhi with which prime minister?

Jawaharlal Nehru had asked through diplomats, after his own visit to America, whether King might travel to his country. The party of three finally landed in New Delhi in February 1959.

Which producer of Selma, a 2014 film about Martin Luther King Jr., also played activist Annie Lee Cooper on screen?

Oprah Winfrey joined the project as a producer in early 2014, then took a role herself. Her character is refused the right to register to vote and knocks the local sheriff to the ground.