– Blogged By @Climb_This_Hill
Every year on January 15th marks a special remembrance for Martin Luther King Jr. as we celebrate his birthday and achievements as a civil rights leader and activist in black history.
As we remember his heroic efforts today, but there are still a few things you may not know about MLK.
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1. Martin Luther King Jr. was born Micheal King, and both he and his father changed their name after the German Protestant leader, Martin Luther.
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2. Martin Luther King Jr. began taking college classes full-time at Atlanta’s Morehouse College at the age of 15 and graduated with his Ph.D. at 25.
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3. On October 14th, 1964, at age 35, Martin Luther King Jr. became the youngest man to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for resisting racial inequality through non-violence.
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4. King donated all of the $54,123 (worth about $400,000 today) of his Nobel Peace Prize award to the Civil Rights movement.
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5. He was the first African American to be granted a national federal holiday.
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6. Over 1,000 streets in the U.S are named after Martin Luther King Jr.
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7. MLK was arrested more than 20 times for his non-violent civil rights protests.
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8. King won a Grammy for ‘Best Spoken Word Album’ for “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.”
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9. In 2006, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Monument in Washington, D.C. was marked the first monument on the National Mall dedicated to an African-American.
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Happy Birthday, MLK. We appreciate all that you’ve done for the black culture and the sacrifices you’ve made to help create equality inside and out of our oppressed community.
