Martin Luther King jnr led many marches across the US promoting the rights for Black Americans. He was assassinated on 4 April 1968, aged only 39.

His passionate speeches advocating peace and equality inspired generations to come. He was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of COINTELPRO from 1963. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him.

Even today, his ideas of ending segregation, promoting equal rights and peaceful activism disturbs the current Trump administration. Although Martin Luther King Day is a Federal Holiday, Trump removed it from the list of free access days to US National Parks – replacing it with Trump’s own birthday. In a counter response on 16 January, California Governor Gavin Newsome announced free entry at more than 200 of California’s state parks for MLK Day 2026 — “inviting Californians to get outside and honour Dr. King’s legacy of justice and equality”. Visit parks.ca.gov/MLKDay2026

In 1977, US President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to King. The citation read:

Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America. He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet.

Martin Luther King jnr. and his wife were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Fiona Grahame