In the twentieth century, there was a black civil rights leader that really stood out and that was Martin Luther King Jr. He lead some of the major civil rights movements from 1950 to 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15,1929 in Atlanta, GA where he also went to school. He graduated from Crower University in 1951, and he got his doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955 (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 20).

Martin Luther King Jr. was known across the nation as a great hero and a great leader in the civil rights movement. Because of his popularity among Blacks, his life, family, and home were constantly in danger at various times. He was threatened, harassed, arrested and even jailed. In January 1957, nearly 60 blacks administrators met in Atlanta to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Martin Luther King Jr. was elected as president. A few months later he met with vice president Richard Nixon when they were celebrating Ghanaian independence. A year later, Dr. King and three men who were civil rights leaders, were given awards by President Dwight Eisenhower. (Biography Dictionary of Black Americans, 86).

Sit-in movements soon began in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. A sit-in was when blacks and white kids sat in restaurants and other places while protesting the segregation of blacks and whites. In 1963, an important struggle for civil rights began in Birmingham, Alabama. In June, Dr. King and 125,000 others marched on a freedom walk to protest citywide racial discrimination. On August 27 of that same year, over 250,000 civil rights followers met in Washington D.C. for a civil rights rally. This march began at the Washington Monument and ended at the Lincoln Memorial. At this point, Dr. King made one of the most famous speeches ever, “ I Have A Dream. Perhaps one of the most famous lines from that speech was the following, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal' "(Encyclopedia of World Biography, 21).

Five years later Dr. King was gunned down. The man responsible for this action was James Earl Ray. A great civil rights leader had died (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 21).
There has never been quite a leader, white or black, that has been able to compare to Martin Luther King, Jr. He was able to lead the whole country to a different way of thinking. Without his views, the United States would not be the place it is today.