Martin Luther King

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia who became an advocate against discrimination based on race and the war in Vietnam. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. On Dec. 31, 1955, he led the nonviolent boycott of city buses of Montgomery, Alabama, after Rosa Parks was arrested for not moving to the back of the bus.

Dr. King's most famous speech was "I Have a Dream," which he delivered to a huge crowd gathered in Washington, D.C., in 1964 to protest discrimination against African Americans. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Dr. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray in 1968.

On April 16, 1963, King wrote:

"As the Apostle Paul carried the gospel of Jesus Christ ... so am I compelled to carry the gospel... I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers ...

I stand in the middle of two opposing forces ... One is a force of complacency ... The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups ... the largest being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement.

Nourished by frustration over racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America ...

I have tried to stand between these two forces ... for there is the more excellent way of love ...

One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage."