Martin Luther King Jr. made his way through history as a civil rights hero whose influence and legacy continue to inspire people around the world more than half a century after his death.
Although the civil rights leader is best remembered for his iconic and frequently quoted “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during March 1963 in Washington, King did more than just dream during his life.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: LIFE AND THE LEGACY
His nonviolent approach to protest and social change made him the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. A year later, King participated in the Selma March, which resulted in the approval of the Voting Rights Act. , legislation that helped Africans Americans exercise their right to vote.
As the United States celebrates the life of the civil rights icon on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, here are five surprising facts you may not know about King.
He was not named Martin at birth
King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, as Michael King Jr.
But King’s father, Michael, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, was inspired by the work of Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther during a trip abroad to places like Rome, Egypt, Jerusalem and Berlin for the World Baptist Alliance.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, spoke to thousands during his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the Washington March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963. (Photo / AP file)
When he returned in 1934, he decided to change his name and his son’s name from Michael King to Martin Luther King, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford.
However, only in 1957, when the young King was 28, did he officially change the name on his birth certificate from Michael King Jr. to Martin Luther King Jr.
He started college at 15
In 1944, King joined Morehouse College in Atlanta in a war program that admitted talented high school students to increase enrollment, according to King’s biography at Encylopedia Britannica.
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King did not initially set out to become a minister, studying medicine and law until his senior year. He was coached by college president Benjamin Mays, a Baptist minister and human rights activist who influenced King’s later decision. King graduated from Morehouse in 1948.
Won a Grammy
King received a Grammy in 1970. He won the Best Spoken Word Album award for “Why I Oppose the Vietnam War”, recorded from a sermon he gave in 1967
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. thanks the crowd at Lincoln Memorial for his “I have a dream” speech during the march in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963. (AP Photo)
He was previously nominated for two Grammys in the spoken word category for recordings of “I Have a Dream” and “We Shall Overcome”.
Survived the first assassination attempt in 1958
Almost a decade before his murder at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, King survived an attempt on his life.
A 29-year-old king was at an autograph session in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on September 20, 1958, when Izola Ware Curry approached and asked “Is this Martin Luther King?”
When King answered “Yes,” Curry, a 42-year-old black woman with mental health problems, stuck a letter opener in her chest, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
King recounted the story of that first attempt on his life on the eve of his murder in 1968, saying that if he had only sneezed, he would have died of his injury.
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King and George Washington
King joined President George Washington as the only two Americans to have their birthdays celebrated as a federal holiday in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that recognized the third Monday in January – close to King’s birthday – like the day of Martin Luther King Jr.