Many people look at Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a weekend extension when they can catch up on all of the items they didn’t get a chance to do on Sunday. Others look at this significant day as one of unity and feel moved to contribute to their community through support of programs and service projects. No matter how you spend your day Monday, Jan. 18, the Indianapolis Recorder wants the community to be aware of the historical significance of the day.
Following are little-known facts about Martin Luther King Jr. There may be even some facts you weren’t taught in school.
- Although Martin Luther King Jr. was only 39 at the time of his death, autopsy results revealed he had the heart of a 60-year-old. Doctors believed this was a result of stress.
- Martin Luther King Jr. was the second of three children by Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King Sr.
- King’s original name was Michael King Jr. In 1931, his father became pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and adopted the name Martin Luther King Sr. When King was 6 years old, his father officially changed his name on his birth certificate to Martin Luther King Jr.
- King skipped ninth and 12th grades in high school and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at age 15.
- After graduating from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1951 with a divinity degree, King earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and theology. In 1955, he received his doctorate from Boston University.
- When King married his wife Coretta, the newlyweds were rejected by a whites-only hotel. The couple opted to spend their wedding night at a Black-owned funeral home.
- There are more than 900 streets worldwide named after King. Forty U.S. states have at least one Martin Luther King Jr.-named street of their own.
- In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into federal law the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. As early as 1968, legislation had been introduced to make King’s birthday a federal holiday. The first holiday was observed on Jan. 20, 1986, but it would not be until 2000 that all 50 states would officially observe it. King is the only American citizen who was not a president to have a national holiday in their honor.
- King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the first of all Black Greek letter organizations. He pledged into the Sigma Chapter at Boston University in 1952.
- From 1957 until his death in 1968, King gave more than 2,500 speeches, traveled more than 6 million miles and wrote five books and countless articles published in newspapers and magazines.
- At the 1939 Atlanta premiere of “Gone With the Wind,” King participated in the festivities as part of an all-boys choir out of Ebenezer Baptist Church.
- King was arrested more than 30 times for his civil rights activities.
- King is a Grammy winner. He posthumously won in 1971 for Best Spoken Word Album for “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.” The speech from which the album was made was delivered April 30, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City.
- In 1964, at age 35, King was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Today that honor goes to Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 when presented the award in 2014.
- On June 30, 1974, as 69-year-old Alberta Williams King played the organ at a Sunday service inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. rose from the front pew, drew two pistols and began to fire shots. One of the bullets struck and killed Alberta Williams King, who died steps from where her son had preached nonviolence.
Sources: history.com, acj.com, alternet.org.
