60 Interesting Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.

Last updated on April 4th, 2023

48. Grammy Awards and Nominations

In 1971, MLK won the Best Spoken-Word Recording award at the Grammys for the speech “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.” He was also previously nominated in the same category for “I Have a Dream” and “We Shall Overcome.”

49. Canonization and Veneration

In Massachusetts, the Holy Christian Orthodox Church canonized King in 2016 and set April 4 as his feast day. The Episcopal Church also honored him with a Lesser Feast, while the Evangelicals remember him on his birth date.

50. 1963 Time Person of the Year

During the peak of the civil rights movement, Time Magazine named MLK as their Person of the Year. They applauded his nonviolent resistance and its powerful effects.

Random Facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

51. A Star Trek Fan

MLK and his children were big “Trekkies.” He even convinced Nichelle Nichols to stay on the show despite her plans to move to Broadway. She played communications officer Uhura, one of the rare positive portrayals of African-Americans on TV.

52. Guaranteed Basic Income

In his last years, MLK focused on poverty alleviation. He supported “guaranteed basic income,” proposed by the American economist Henry George, and discussed it in his book, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

53. A Dangerous Life

MLK went to jail 29 times because of his activism. He also faced multiple threats to his life, including an unsuccessful assassination attempt in 1958, where a woman attacked him with a knife during a book signing.

54. A Doomed Romance

While studying at Crozer, MLK had a relationship with a white woman who worked at the cafeteria. Friends opposed his plan to marry her because of the taboo on interracial marriage.

55. Unbearable Guilt

Guilt-ridden over his Grandma Jennie, he tried to harm himself twice by jumping out a second-story window: the first was when he and his brother knocked her down cold while playing, and the second was when she had a heart attack after he sneaked out of the house for a parade.

56. FBI COINTELPRO Investigation

The FBI considered MLK a radical. Agents investigated possible links to the communists and secretly recorded his activities. In 1964, they sent him a blackmail package with a letter that threatened to expose his secrets.

57. Captured Assassin

The investigation into his death pointed to the thief James Earl Ray as the one who pulled the trigger. Authorities found him in London using a fake Canadian passport en route to Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.

58. Confession and Conspiracy

James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. He received a 99-year prison sentence. He later exposed a conspiracy and tried to secure a trial, but he died in 1998 at age 70.

59. The Original Copy

In 1963, young George Raveling stood near the podium when MLK delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. The last-minute event volunteer immediately asked King for the typewritten copy and kept it despite offers of up to $3.5 million. He became the first African-American basketball coach at the University of Iowa.

60. The 1999 Gallup Poll

In a survey of 20th-century world figures most admired by Americans, Martin Luther King Jr. placed second behind Mother Teresa. Also high on the list are John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Helen Keller.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

1. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

2. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”

3. “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”

4. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?”

5. “A lie cannot live.”

6. “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

7. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

8. “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”

9. “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”

10. “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

11. “We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs ‘down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

12. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

13. “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

14. “The time is always right to do what is right.”

15. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

16. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

17. “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

18. “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

19. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

20. “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

21. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

22. “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

23. “We will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”

24. “We must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.”

25. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

26. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Martin Luther King Jr. – quick facts and essential information