Martin Luther King Jr. Day
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., (1929–68), who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is most closely linked with the victories of the African American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, is remembered in America on the third Monday in January. King was essential in convincing his fellow Americans to end the legal segregation that existed in the South and in some other regions, as well as in igniting support for the civil rights legislation that established the foundation for racial equality in the United States. King was a political organizer, a master orator, and a proponent of nonviolent protest. Not a day goes by in the United States (and in many parts of the world) in which his influence is felt and his legacy honored.