We all know a little about Martin Luther King Jr. We know his famous quotes. We’ve listened to his uplifting speeches. Martin Luther King Day was Monday and here are a few facts about him that you possibly didn’t know.
His name at birth was Michael. His father, Martin Luther King Sr., a pastor at Atlanta’s famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became so inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran Church, that he changed both his name and his 5-year-old son’s names to Martin.
He was such a gifted student that he skipped grades 9 and 12 and started college at age 15.
King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial was not his first time to speak there. Six years before that, he spoke there at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957. His speech was very well received and put him at the forefront of the civil rights movement.
He was jailed 29 times with trumped up charges like going 30 in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.
He was nearly assassinated 10 years before his death. He was at a book signing in Harlem in 1958 when a woman came up to him and asked if he was Martin Luther King. He told he was and she said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years.” After which she plunged a seven-inch letter opener into his chest. After hours of delicate surgery to repair his aorta, surgeons told him that from the position of the letter opener if he had merely sneezed he would have died.
His mother died by gunshot too. On June 30, 1974, as 69-year-old Alberta Williams King played the organ at a Sunday service inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. rose from the front pew, drew two pistols and began to fire shots. One of the bullets struck and killed King, who died steps from where her son had preached nonviolence.
The day before Dr. King was assassinated, he gave a speech in Memphis, Tennessee, to offer support for sanitation workers who had received unfair treatment by their bosses. He told the crowd, “And 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.” In the aftermath of his death, some people found the language he used to be an eerie indication that he knew his death was imminent.
Unfortunately some people are still not “hearing” him and getting the message all these years later, but hopefully his dream will come true one day soon.
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