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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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@ National Portrait Gallery

Description

Born Atlanta, GeorgiaAlthough many important civil rights leaders emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. personified the struggle for African American equality and justice. King’s synthesis of Christian theology and its message of a supporting and loving God, along with Mohandas Gandhi’s tactics of nonviolent protest, became the defining features of the civil rights movement. In 1963 King focused the nation’s attention on the African American struggle by leading a massive civil rights protest in Birmingham, Alabama, and the August 28 March on Washington, in which he delivered his historic “I have a dream” speech. By the mid-1960s King also became involved in the antiwar movement. This photograph by Benedict Fernandez was taken on April 15, 1967, after a march from New York’s Central Park to the United Nations Plaza, where King delivered an address denouncing the Vietnam War as racist.
Type:
Image
Format:
Gelatin Silver Print
Rights:
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Eastman Kodak Professional Photography Division, the Engl Trust, and Benedict J. Fernandez
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Record Contributed By

National Portrait Gallery

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution