Martin Luther King, Jr. was born at noon Tuesday, January 15, 1929, at the family home, 501 Auburn Avenue, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Charles Johnson was the attending physician. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the first son and second child born to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and Alberta Williams King. Other children born to the Kings were Christine King Farris and the late Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams King. Martin Luther King's maternal grandparents were the Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, second pastor of Ebenezer Baptist, and Jenny Parks Williams. His paternal grandparents, James Albert and Delia King, were sharecroppers on a farm in Stockbridge, Georgia.

He married the former Coretta Scott, younger daughter of Obadiah and Bernice McMurray Scott of Marion, Alabama on June 18, 1953. The marriage ceremony took place on the lawn of the Scott's home in Marion. The Reverend King, Sr., performed the service, with Mrs. Edythe Bagley, the sister of Mrs. King, maid of honor, and the Reverend A.D. King, the brother of Martin Luther King, Jr., best man.

The following is a reflection of some of poignant moments of Dr. King's life and his legacy in bringing the Civil Rights movement to the foreground of America's conscience.

1929 -- The first son and second child in his family, Martin Luther King Jr. is born to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and Alberta Williams King on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.
 1948 -- An excellent scholar, Martin Luther King Jr. graduates from Atlanta's Morehouse College without formally graduating from Booker T. Washington High School. He later enters the ministry and is ordained at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta at the age of 19.
1953 -- Martin Luther King Jr. exchanges marriage vows with Coretta Scott at Scott's home in Marion, Alabama on June 18th, 1953. The couple would later bear four children -- Yolanda (b. 1955); Martin Luther III (b. 1957); Dexter (b. 1961); and Bernice (b. 1963).
1954 -- King answers a call to ministry at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He served as pastor at Dexter Avenue from 1954 to 1959. 1955 -- Dr. King receives his Ph.D. from Boston University. This year would also prove to be a pivotal moment for the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King. Following Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up a bus seat to a white man in Montgomery Alabama, Dr. King and other civil rights activists mobilize a yearlong boycott of Montgomery's bus system.
1956 -- Dr. King is arrested for the first time for driving over the speed limit. Four days later, the lives of the King family are threatened when a bomb is thrown onto the porch of their Montgomery home. Later this year, Dr. King is indicted on charges related to the Montgomery bus boycott. The District court rules that bus segregation is unconstitutional and an all-race inclusive Montgomery bus system returns to black neighborhoods.
1957 -- Amid more threats against his life, Martin Luther King Jr. founds the the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is elected president of the organization.
1958 -- Dr. King's book "Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story" is published. A mentally ill woman stabs Dr. King in the chest during a book signing in Harlem.
1959 -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. resigns from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and moves his family back to his birthplace of Atlanta to continue directing the SCLC. The King family travel to India to study Ghandi's teachings of non-violence which would later become the foundation of his Civil Rights campaign.
1960 -- Martin Luther King Jr. becomes co-pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church. King is arrested in Atlanta after conducting a sit-in.
1961 -- A demonstration to desegregate public facilities in Albany, Georgia, leads to Dr. King's arrest on charges of protesting without a permit. He is later convicted on the charges.
1963 -- King writes his now-famous "Letter From Birmingham Jail" while imprisoned for leading a non-violent sit-in to protest the segregation of eating facilities. More acts of civil disobedience lead to authorities unleashing fire hoses and police dogs on protestors in Birmingham. Later this year, in a victorious moment for Civil Rights, the Supreme Court rules Birmingham's segregation laws unconstitutional. Dr. King's book "Strength to Love" is published. On August 28th, Dr. King delivers the speech which critics would later deem the most powerful speech of the 20th Century. King's "I Have A Dream Speech" was heard by thousands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It remains, in effect, one of the most memorable speeches of all-time. On November 22, President Kennedy is killed by a sniper's bullet while riding in an open-car motorcade in Dallas, Texas.
1964 -- Dr. King joins demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida for the integration of public accommodations. His book "Why We Can't Wait" is published by Harper & Row. At age 35, Dr. King becomes the youngest man, the second American, and third black man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965 -- Civil rights activist Malcolm X is gunned down in New York City in February of this year. In Alabama, thousands of protest marchers leave Selma for a march to Montgomery. Along their journey, they stop to hear a speech by Dr. King. Later this year, President Johnson signs the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
1966 -- Dr. King launches a drive to make Chicago an open city in regard to housing. He is stoned in Chicago as he leads a march through crowds of angry whites. 1967 -- Martin Luther King Jr. writes his final book "Where Do We Go from Here?" while visiting Jamaica. Alabama is ordered to desegregate all public schools by theáfederal government. Dr. King announces the formation of a Poor People's Campaign.
1968 -- Dr. King leads a parade of protestors in support of striking black sanitation workers. King delivers his "I Have Been to the Mountain Top" speech at the Memphis Masonic Temple in Tennessee on April 3rd. It would be his last speech. On April 4th, the day after he delivers his historic speech, a sniper kills Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. King was just 39 years old. Upon learning the news, Senator Robert Kennedy announces the death of Dr. King in Indianapolis, Indiana. Four days after Dr. King's assassination, on April 8th, Democratic Michigan Representative John Conyers submits the first legislation to propose King's birthday as a holiday. James Earl Ray is captured, convicted, and sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of Dr. King. Ray later recants his confession and spends the rest of his life professing his innocence behind bars.
1970 -- The state of California, on April 10th, passed legislation to make Dr. King's birthday a school holiday, becoming the first state to do so.
1973 -- Illinois became the first state to adopt Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday as a statewide holiday. 1983 -- On November 2nd, President Ronald Reagan signs legislation to designate the third Monday in January, a federal legal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.
1986 -- The nation observes the birthday of Dr. King's birthday as a federal holiday for the first time on January 20th, 1986.
1998 -- The U.S. Congress passes a law authorizing the creation of a memorial in honor of Dr. King near the site where he made his 1963 "I Have Dream" speech on Washington D.C.'s National Mall. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Project Foundation aims to break ground on the project in 2006. On April 23, 1998, James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing Dr. King, dies in prison at the age of 70.
2006 -- On January 30, 2006, Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King dies at a rehabilitation center in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. Mrs. King, had been undergoing therapy for a stroke she suffered several months earlier and ovarian cancer. She was 78. More than 14-thousand people gathered for Mrs. King's six-hour funeral at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia on February 7, 2006. President George W. Bush and other dignitaries break ground on the site of the memorial project for Dr. King in Washington, D.C. on November 13, 2006. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey, poet Maya Angelou, former U.S. Ambassador Andrew Jackson, The Reverend Jesse Jackson and former President Bill Clinton are among those on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony.
2007 -- On May 15, 2007, Yolanda Denise King, the first-born child of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King, dies after collapsing at the home of a family friend in Santa Monica, California. She was 51.
2008 -- In September 2008, the Commission Of Fine Arts approves a redesign of the statue of Dr. King slated to be erected on the site of the under-construction King memorial project on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. King will be the first African-American honored with a memorial on the National Mall area and the third non-president to be honored in that way.

The "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King is recognized as one of the best speeches ever given.

In August 1963, Martin Luther King electrified America with his momentous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, dramatically delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

His soaring rhetoric demanding racial justice and an integrated society became a mantra for the black community and is as familiar to subsequent generations of Americans as the US Declaration of Independence. His words proved to be a touchstone for understanding the social and political upheaval of the time and gave the nation a vocabulary to express what was happening.

The key message in the speech is that all people are created equal and, although not the case in America at the time, King felt it must be the case for the future. He argued passionately and powerfully.