Martin Luther King Jr. - 5 Amazing Facts You Might not Know and What Pope Paul VI said After his Death to SHARE

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.(born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 – died - April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist. He advanced the civil rights movement using nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday in the United States observed on the third Monday of January each year. After MLK Jr. was killed, Pope Paul VI in his Angelus address, said that the he was “a Christian prophet for racial integration.” January 19, 2026, is designated as MLK Jr. Day in the USA. (SEE Full Text "I have a dream" speech at bottom)

Here are 5 interesting facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

1. King’s father was born Michael King, but changed his name in 1931 in reverence to the German theologian Martin Luther.
2. Martin was almost assassinated before - due to many of his famous civil rights accomplishments in the early 1960s. Izola Ware Curry, who was found to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, approached Martin at a book signing for “Stride Towards Freedom.” After receiving confirmation that he was indeed Martin Luther King Jr. she exclaimed “I’ve been looking for you for five years” and stabbed Martin in the chest with a letter opener.  The blade pressed against his aorta and took several hours of careful surgery to remove.
3. Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at the age of 35.  This made him the youngest male recipient of the prestigious award.  He donated the entire prize of $54,123 (now equivalent to $400,000) to the civil rights movement. Martin won dozens more awards for his work including the Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal, and a Grammy.  The Grammy was for Best Spoken Word Album, awarded in 1971 for King’s “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.”
4. Martin Luther King Jr. was targeted by the FBI for being “the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation" from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and Records of Martin taken by the FBI are held in the National Achieve but remain sealed from public access until 2027.
5.   His most famous speech "I have a Dream" (See full text speech of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. below the video) continues to be an inspiration. 

Full text speech "I have a dream" of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. -

 I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. There are those who are asking the devotees of Civil Rights: “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For whites only.” No, no we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day “every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
This is our hope, this is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.

https://www.archives.gov/files/social-media/transcripts/transcript-march-pt3-of-3-2602934.pdf