Ten things you didn’t know about Martin Luther King Jr.
Sound sharp on Martin Luther King Jr. Day by revealing some of these less-common facts about the civil rights leader!
- There are close to 1,000 streets in the world named after Martin Luther King Jr.
- The former Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., where King was assassinated, is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day was not recognized as a paid national holiday by all 50 states until 2000. The last to sign on was South Carolina.
- In the speech known as “I Have a Dream,” those words were never in the original draft. They were ad libbed.
- King’s autopsy revealed that although he was only 39 years old, he had the heart of a 60-year-old man, perhaps a result of the stress of 13 years in the civil rights movement. He himself had verbally predicted he would not live past the age of 40.
- His father was born Michael King, and Martin Luther King Jr. was originally called Michael King Jr. After a family trip to Germany, his father, a pastor and missionary, changed both of their names to “Martin Luther” after the German Protestant reformer.
- He entered Moorehouse College at the age of 15 as part of an early admittance program that aimed to boost enrollment during the war.
- Martin Luther King Jr. was a big Trekkie. He was so into Star Trek that he managed to convince Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, to stay on the show beyond the first season.
- In 1964, at the age of 35, King won the Nobel Peace Prize. To this day he is still the youngest male to ever receive it.
- There are two places outside of the United States that celebrate MLK Day: Toronto, Canada, and Hiroshima, Japan.
By Lauren Simmons: http://as.wwu.edu/asreview/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-martin-luther-king-/