By AFRO Staff
Though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. only had 39 years on Earth, he knew how to maximize the potential of each day. AFRO Archives detail his movements across the country, trading from city to city preaching the gospel and equality for all. Though his civil rights work and leadership in the faith community often take the spotlight, Dr. King also went through a barrage of trials and tribulations in the public eye. In 1958, at the age of 29, he was stabbed by a mentally ill woman of color, Izola Curry, in Harlem. He was arrested time and time again for his engagement and promotion of civil disobedience and in a move ripped right from today’s headlines– when they couldn’t get Dr. King any other way– they tied him up in court with tax charges that never stuck and then a perjury charge.
The human rights activist was leading a full life with wife Coretta Scott King and children, Dr. Martin Luther King III, Yolanda, Dexter and Bernice King. At the time of his death in 1968, he had been likened to Ghandi, earned a Nobel Peace Prize and broken countless barriers for people of color.
Dr. King’s sermons and speeches have gone down in history as inspiration for the masses, and his words are forever memorialized through film and photo. Check out AFRO coverage of Dr. King’s activism during the 1950s and 60s here and in the C Section!
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The post All hail the King: a look through the AFRO Archives appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers .