Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chances are if you are hip enough to be looking at this web site, you are too young to remember the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He is a person you only read about in history books. But for those of us old enough to hear his speeches and to witness his courage, he remains one of most inspiring figures of the 20th Century.
In 1955, he was the spokesman for the bus boycott started when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus. In 1960, he was arrested during a sit-in at a lunch counter that refused to serve him. In 1963, he was arrested by "Bull" Connor and while in prison, he wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. That same year he delivered his I have a Dream speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter of a million people. His work helped usher in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act and the Open Housing Act. He was Time's Man of the Year, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When he was assassinated 40 years ago, he was younger than Roscoe Bartlett.
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