The African American minister and Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), originated the nonviolence strategy within the activist civil rights movement. He was one of the most important black leaders of his era.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Ga. He attended the Atlanta public schools. Following graduation from Morehouse College in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary, having been ordained the previous year into the ministry of the National Baptist Church. He graduated from Crozer in 1951 and received his doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955.

In Boston, King met Coretta Scott, whom he married on June 18, 1953. Four children were born to them. King became minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1954. He became active with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Alabama Council on Human Relations.

Nonviolence: The Bus Boycott

In December...