“I have a dream” These words come from the greatest difference maker of all time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. can be described as smart, bold, and courageous. If it wasn’t for him, this world we live in would be a very different place. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader of the Civil Rights movement during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Martin Luther King Jr. will be forever remembered for his childhood, career accomplishments, and legacy.

To begin with, Martin Luther King Jr. had a very interesting childhood and early life. He was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia (Millender). The middle child of Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. They lived in a twelve room house with his grandparents. “The group consisting of mother, father, and child is the main educational a genly of mankind” Religion and church was a major part of his life. Both his father and grandfather were Baptist preachers. King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School (Millender). He skipped both the ninth and twelfth grade. He entered Morehouse College at age fifteen. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951 (Who2). “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education” King married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama. They had four children; Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King (Sparactus).

Furthermore, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had many career accomplishments. He became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Church in Montgomery, Alabama when he was twenty-five years old in 1954 (Factmonster). King was on the Birmingham African-American community committee. They looked into the cases that involved a fifteen year old school girl not giving up her seat on the bus to a white man. This case known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a similar case occurred famously with Rosa Parks. A boycott with the incident lasted for 385 days, the situation became so intense that King’s house was bombed. King was arrested during this campaign, which ended with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses (Sparactus). King was later elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership conference because of these actions. His job was to provide leadership for Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. became the youngest man to win the Noble peace price in 1964 (Nobelprize). The Noble Peace Prize is an award one can receive for contributions of peace. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. (Nobelprize)On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated (Nobelprize). “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”

In addition, Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy will be remembered as him being a very courageous individual. He changed the way people treat on another. If it wasn’t for him, there would be a lot of racial segregation in our society. Imagine a world where using the same bathroom, eating in the same restaurant, drinking the same water fountain, public transportation would be an issue. Martin Luther King Jr. is listed as one of the one hundred greatest African Americans to ever live. “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is bound to the midnight of racism” King’s legacy can also be remembered at the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Established on October 10, 1980, consists of several buildings surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr.'s boyhood home on Auburn Avenue (Millender). These places are components in the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy as a leader of the American civil rights movement. We honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the third Monday of each January.

In conclusion, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader of the Civil Rights movement during the 1950’s and 1960’s. People will always remember his “I have a dream” speech because of the comments he made up racism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the prominent leader of the African American Civil Rights Movement.