Claim: Martin Luther King Jr. died.

Martin Luther King Jr. -LRB- born Michael King Jr. , January 15 , 1929 -- April 4 , 1968 -RRB- was an American Baptist minister and activist who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement . He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs .   King became a civil rights activist early in his career . He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -LRB- SCLC -RRB- in 1957 , serving as its first president . With the SCLC , King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany , Georgia , and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham , Alabama . King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington , where he delivered his famous `` I Have a Dream '' speech .   On October 14 , 1964 , King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance . In 1965 , he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches , and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing . In the final years of his life , King expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War , alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled `` Beyond Vietnam '' .   In 1968 , King was planning a national occupation of Washington , D.C. , to be called the Poor People 's Campaign , when he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4 in Memphis , Tennessee . King 's death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities . Ray , who fled the country , was arrested two months later at London Heathrow Airport . Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison for King 's murder , and died in 1998 from hepatitis while serving his sentence .   King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal . Martin Luther King Jr. . Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971 , and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986 . Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor , and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him . The Martin Luther King Jr. . Memorial on the National Mall in Washington , D.C. , was dedicated in 2011 .