Martin Luther King, Jr.

Civil rights champion Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. Attending Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, he grew increasingly influenced by Mahatma Ghandi's non-violent strategies for social change, completing his Ph.D. in systematic theology in 1955. Rejecting a series of academic offers, King instead opted to become pastor of Montgomery, Alabama's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church; on December 5, 1955 -- just five days after Rosa Parks' landmark refusal to conform to the city's segregationist busing policies...