Martin Luther King Jr. - 1

Very few Americans are as celebrated as Martin Luther King Jr., the Baptist minister and social activist who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States until his tragic death in 1968.

As an African-American born in the rural south in 1929, MLK faced an uphill battle all his life. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, the young Martin was considered a precocious student who paid little attention to his studies and found great discomfort in religion.

That all began to change in his junior year, when he took a Bible class and renewed his faith. By 1948, he had earned a degree from Morehouse College before moving on to the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. It was at Morehouse College that MLK opened his eyes to racial inequality.

Following years of successful civil rights activism, MLK and 61 other activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957.