Changemaker 6: Martin Luther King JR.

Today's changemaker is Martin Luther King Jr., to whom a US federal holiday is dedicated on the third Monday of January each year. Born in 1929, he became one of the most influential activists in the Civil Rights Movement. He gave his most famous speech, known as the "I Have a Dream" speech, at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King fought for freedom and economic justice and against racial discrimination his entire life. On April 4, 1968, he was assassinated in Memphis, TN, while planning the Poor People's March on Washington. King was also a supporter of Native American rights and opposed to the Vietnam War.

NOTE: On January 17, 2022, King’s descendants led a march for voting rights across the new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC.

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Photo credit: Stephen F. Somerstein / Getty Images / 1965