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Little Known Facts About Martin Luther King, Jr.
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May 20, 2025
Civil Rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., is most remembered for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience to advance civil rights and pursue equal opportunities for African Americans. He opposed segregation and marched on Washington, DC, to deliver his famous "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963 and, the following year, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for opposing racial inequality through nonviolent resistance
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We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal
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Civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. is best remembered for his use of civil disobedience to advance equal rights for African Americans
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As the only non-president to have a national holiday in the United States named after him, you'd think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be very well known
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But the truth is, what most people have heard about the legendary civil rights activist barely scratches the surface
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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed
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So today we're going to take a look at some surprising and little-known facts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
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When he was only 12 years old, Martin Luther King decided to go to a parade instead of staying home and watching his little brother, A.D., who was six at the time
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Lacking any supervision, A.D. slid down a banister and ran into their grandmother, knocking her unconscious
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The incident triggered a heart attack, from which she died. Martin blamed himself for her death, even though it had nothing to do with her having been knocked unconscious
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Embroiled with grief, the future civil rights leader tried to end his own life by jumping out of the second-story window of his family's home
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His father later recalled that Martin was troubled for quite a while following the passing of his grandmother and had started to have difficulty sleeping
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It probably won't surprise anyone to hear this, but Martin Luther King was a smart man, and he was also a pretty smart kid
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In fact, young Martin did so well in school that he was able to skip grades 9 and 12
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and was even accepted into college as a freshman at the age of 15
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Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, he attended Morehouse College in 1944
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Initially, King had no interest in becoming a Baptist minister, even though his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been called to the ministry
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However, Benjamin E. Mays, the president of Morehouse, eventually persuaded King to change his mind
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King also received an undergraduate degree in sociology and went on to obtain his second bachelor's degree in divinity
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from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. By the time he was 25, he had earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University
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Boston University is my alma mater. I meant so much to me in terms of the formulation of my thinking and the ideas that have guided my life
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In the 1940s, Martin Luther King was attending seminary school in Pennsylvania
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While he was there, he started dating a German woman named Betty, who was working as a cafeteria employee
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However, Martin's friends urged him to break up with Betty, pointing out that his father would not approve of their interracial relationship
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nor of his son dating someone below his station. According to David Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross
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King was heartbroken after he split with Betty and had a difficult time getting over their relationship
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However, the change didn't help much. King's father did not ultimately like his son's wife, Coretta Scott, either
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So was this just a case of a father who didn't think anyone was good enough for his son
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No, he was actually hoping Martin Jr. would marry an opera singer named Matawilda Dobbs
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Young Martin had gotten a summer job harvesting tobacco near Hartford, Connecticut
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Hailing from a middle-class Southern family, he was surprised to learn that not everyone in the United States treated African Americans as second-class citizens
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He wrote in a letter to his father, On our way here, we saw some things I had never anticipated to see
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After we passed Washington, there was no discrimination at all. The white people here are very nice
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We go to any place we want to and sit anywhere we want to. He added in a note to his mother
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I never thought that a person of my race could eat anywhere, but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford
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and we went to the largest shows there. I think that is an answer to that myth
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and it is that time is neutral. In the 1950s, before he had begun advocating for passive resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King
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actually applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon. He possessed a collection of firearms for
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self-defense and was often surrounded by armed guards who protected him and his family. In fact
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King had so many guns, one of King's colleagues, Glenn Smiley, even referred to King's home as
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an arsenal. Now, to be clear, King wasn't just a gun collector. He had some really good reasons
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to fear for his life. For example, the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama had put a price on his head
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and he was receiving daily death threats. Moreover, both his home and churches in Montgomery
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had been bombed. We must not despair. We must not become bitter
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Now must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. Martin Luther King was no stranger to danger He was the recipient of countless threats and he survived at least one assassination attempt That was really really close
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It was a book signing in 1958. A woman named Izzola Ware Curry approached King, saying
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I've been looking for you for five years. After which, she stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener
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Well-meaning bystanders were about to pull the letter opener out of the wound, which would have almost certainly killed King
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Luckily, two New York City police officers stopped them. Instead, the police rushed King to Harlem Hospital
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where doctors spent a labor-intensive three hours trying to remove the instrument
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Turns out it was positioned dangerously close to King's aorta, and even the slightest slip would have killed him
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If you're wondering why Curry attacked King, the answer seems to be that she suffered from a variety of mental illnesses
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Later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Curry would spend the rest of her life in psychiatric facilities and nursing homes
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If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year in August to try to tell America about a dream that I had had
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Fighting the system often means doing a little time. And during his many years of social advocacy, King was arrested on numerous occasions
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In fact, over the course of his life, he was sent to jail 29 times, mostly for civil disobedience
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There were also some very questionable arrests. For example, one occurred in 1956
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King was sent to jail in Montgomery, Alabama, for driving five miles over the speed limit
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Yeah, that's right. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., famed leader of the Civil Rights Movement
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and author of some of the most famous speeches about race relations in the history of the world
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loved him some Star Trek. It's actually not that surprising. Trek was a progressive show for its time
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boldly going where no television show had gone before. For example, Star Trek featured the first interracial kiss ever on television
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King was so into it, he can actually be credited with persuading Nichelle Nichols
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to stay on as Uhura on Star Trek following the end of season one. Nichols says that King wanted her to stay on the show
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not only because she was a black woman playing a main character on television
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but because her character wasn't written based on popular stereotypes. Nichols' character was intelligent
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and the other crew members regarded her as an equal. Security sweeps of all decks are negative, Mr. Spock
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No evidence of intrude. Very well. Cancel red alert, but maintain increased security
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Aye, sir. Also, Uhura was pretty awesome, which we suspect wasn lost on King the Trekkie Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4 1968
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in Memphis, Tennessee. Eerily, the night before he died, he spoke to a group of people at Mason
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Temple Church, telling his audience that he may not get to see the promised land alongside them
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King said, like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now
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I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land
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Although he was known to smoke regularly, there are actually very few photos of Martin Luther King with a cigarette in his mouth
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This is because King very actively hid his habit. He did this for two major reasons
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First, there was a social stigma attached to cigarette smoking, particularly since he was a minister
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And second, he didn't want his children to see him smoke and take up the habit. Regardless, he couldn't seem to give up the habit
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and on the very day he was assassinated, he was on the balcony of his hotel smoking a cigarette
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After he died, his friend, the Reverend Samuel Billy Kyles, allegedly removed a pack of cigarettes from King's pocket
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to conceal the fact that he had been smoking when he was killed. In 1974, six years after Dr. King was assassinated
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his mother, Alberta Williams King, was killed. She was playing the organ at church
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when a man named Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. stood up in the front pew of the Ebenezer Baptist Church
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He pulled out two pistols and began firing. Chenault had actually intended to kill King's father
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but killed Alberta instead because she was closer to him. She died in the same church where her son preached nonviolence
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Initially, Chenault was given the death penalty for his crime. But King's family opposed capital punishment
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and petitioned for him to receive life imprisonment instead. Martin Luther King Jr. won a Grammy
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but not for wailing out a few hot tunes. He didn't possess a secret singing ability
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that we know of. Following his death, King won a Grammy Award
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for best spoken word album of 1971. He received the honor for his album
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Why I Opposed the War in Vietnam. If you're wondering why he opposed the war in Vietnam
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he said, I see this war as an unjust, evil, and futile war
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I preach to you today because my conscience leaves me with no other choice
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And I don't know about you, I ain't going to study war no more
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