Martin Luther King Jr. Trivia

Explanation
At the age of 35, King was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil-rights movement.

Explanation
King delivered the speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

Explanation
The first was George Washington. Congress passed the federal holiday honoring King in 1983. It is celebrated on the third Monday in January. King's actual birthday is Jan. 15.

Explanation
In high school King did so well that he skipped both the 9th and 12th grades. At the age of 15, he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Explanation
The Kings had four children: Yolanda, Dexter, Martin and Bernice.

Explanation
King gathered with other civil-rights leaders in Atlanta Jan. 10-11, 1957, to found the SCLC. He was elected president of the organization. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity, its operational techniques from Gandhi. The NAACP was founded in 1909; King was, however, a member of the executive committee of the NAACP in the 1950s. The ACLU was founded in 1920. The UN officially came into existence in 1945.

Explanation
King led the March on Washington in 1963 to urge Congress to pass the bill proposed by President John F. Kennedy. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed shortly after.

Explanation
Despite these hardships, King stayed the course. In the 11-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled more than 6 million miles and spoke more than 2,500 times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest and action; meanwhile, he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. He led numerous protests, was awarded five honorary degrees, was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Explanation
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tenn., where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, King, 39, was assassinated. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ray later recanted but investigators did not reopen the case. A special U.S. House of Representatives committee determined Ray likely was aided by others. Ray died in 1998.