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Martin Luther King Jr. has made his way down history as a civil rights hero whose influence and legacy continues to inspire people around the world more than half a century after his death.
While the civil rights leader may be best known for his iconic and oft-quoted “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 march to Washington, King did more than just dream while he was alive.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: LIFE AND LEGACY
His non-violent approach to protest and social change saw him become the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. A year later, King participated in the Selma March, which culminated in the adoption of the Voting Rights Act, a law that has helped Africa. Americans exercise their right to vote.
As the United States celebrates the life of the civil rights icon on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, here are five surprising facts you might not know about King.
His name was not Martin at birth
King was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, under the name Michael King Jr.
But King’s father Michael, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, drew inspiration from the work of Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther on a trip overseas to places such as Rome, the ‘Egypt, Jerusalem and Berlin for the Baptist World Alliance.
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addressed thousands during his “I Have a Dream” speech outside the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Liberty, Washington, DC, August 28, 1963. (AP Photo / File)
Upon his return in 1934, he decided to change his name and his son’s name from Michael King to Martin Luther King, according to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford.
However, it wasn’t until 1957, when the young king was 28, that he officially changed the name on his birth certificate from Michael King Jr. to Martin Luther King Jr.
Started university at age 15
In 1944, King entered Morehouse College in Atlanta as part of a war program that admitted gifted high school students to increase enrollment, according to King’s biography from Encylopedia Britannica.
ALVEDA KING SAYS OF ICONIC MLK SPEECH, 57 YEARS LATER: ‘WE ALWAYS HAVE A DREAM’
King did not initially decide to become a minister, studying medicine and law until his final year. He was mentored by University President Benjamin Mays, a Baptist minister and rights activist who influenced King’s later decision. King graduated from Morehouse in 1948.
Won a Grammy
King received a Grammy in 1970. He won the award for best spoken word album for “Why I Oppose the Vietnam War”, recorded from a sermon he gave in 1967.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. thanks the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial for his “I Have a Dream” speech during the march in Washington, DC, August 28, 1963. (AP Photo)
He was previously nominated for two Grammys in the spoken word category for the recordings of “I Have a Dream” and “We Shall Overcome”.
Survived the first assassination attempt in 1958
Almost a decade before his assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, King survived an assassination attempt.
A 29-year-old king was at a book signing in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on September 20, 1958, when Izola Ware Curry walked up and asked “Is this Martin Luther King?”
When King replied “Yes,” Curry, a 42-year-old black woman with mental health problems, plunged a seven-inch letter opener into her chest, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
King recounted the story of that first assassination attempt on the eve of his assassination in 1968, saying that if he had simply sneezed he would have died from his injury.
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King and George Washington
King joined President George Washington as the only two Americans to have celebrated their birthdays as a federal holiday in 1983 when President Ronald Reagan signed a bill recognizing the third Monday in January – close to King’s birthday – as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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