October 14

He was the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929 as Michael Luther King. His father later changed their names. He grew up on Auburn Avenue near Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his grandfather and father were pastors. King graduated from Morehouse College, became an ordained minister, and earned a Ph.D. at Boston University, where he met his wife Coretta.

As pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, King led the bus boycott there in 1955. His philosophy of non-violent direct action made him the most prominent African-American in the civil rights movement.

He launched the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, and moved back to Atlanta to co-pastor Ebenezer with his father. In Birmingham, the March on Washington, and Selma, King became a national symbol of the campaign to end segregation in America. It eventually cost him his life.

In spite of numerous arrests, physical violence, and bombings of his home, King remained committed to non-violence. At 35, he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 14, 1964, Today in Georgia History.