Interesting Facts About Martin Luther King Jr. You Might Not Know

King was a preacher who used the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience to fight for equality and justice.

Dr. King was born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, and died in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King’s legacy extends into today and he remains one of the most discussed leaders of our time.

King’s birth name was Michael, not Martin.

His father Martin Luther King Sr. who was also called Michael changed their names to Martin after visiting Germany where he was inspired by the Protestant leader Martin Luther.

King got a C in public speaking at seminary school.

Dr. King’s father, a preacher in Atlanta, thought his son was the best speaker he’d ever seen, before he went away to seminary school. But in his first year of seminary school in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of Dr. King’s professors gave him a C in a public speaking course! In his third and final year, Dr. King was valedictorian with straight A's.

King Jr. married Coretta (Scott) King on June 18, 1953, and had four children:

Bernice, (March 28, 1963); Dexter, (January 30, 1961); (Martin III, October 23, 1957); and Yolanda, (November 17, 1955).

He authored five books, published from 1958 through 1968:

His books focused American race relations and collections of his sermons and lectures. According to the King Center, Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech is 17 minutes long.

While at Crozer Theological Seminary, Dr. King was introduced to the teachings and philosophies of Mohandas Gandhi.

Dr. King entered Crozer in the fall of 1948 after Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948 in India. In an interview, Dr. King said he attended a lecture from the president of Howard University given in Philadelphia about Gandhi, and he immediately became "deeply influenced" by the philosophy of nonviolence.

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not his first at the Lincoln Memorial.

Six years before his iconic oration at the March on Washington, King was among the civil rights leaders who spoke in the shadow of the Great Emancipator during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957. Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights. His speech, in which he urged America to "give us the ballot," drew strong reviews and positioned him at the forefront of the civil rights leadership.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a smoker who hid his habits to avoid stigma and controversy as a Christian leader.

It is reported that moments before his death, King was on the balcony of the Memphis hotel he was shot to smoke.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the youngest person until 2011 to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

He was just 35 years old. King donated all the Nobel Peace Prize money – $54,123 – to the Civil Rights movement. Currently, Malala Yousafzai is the youngest winner on record; she was 17 when she won the prize in 2014.

King skipped the 9th and 12th grade and started his education at Morehouse College when he was 15.

He joined the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology.

King was arrested 30 times and jailed frequently in relation to civil-rights protests.

Some of those arrests were for protesting, others were trumped-up charges such as speeding.

He and new wife Coretta Scott King married in 1953.

They spent their first wedding night in a funeral parlor owned by a friend, because honeymoon suites were not available for African Americans at that time in history.

1956, the King’s home was bombed, in response to his involvement with the Montgomery Bus Boycott the year before.

Though his wife and firstborn daughter were home at the time, no one, thankfully, was injured.

Dr. King’s final words were to his long-time friend and musician Ben Branch

"Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty." Moments later, on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated on the balcony of his hotel room.

He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead

Though he died at only age 39, the medical autopsy revealed that his heart was like a 60 yr. old thought mostly to be due to stress.

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