Black History Month Resources (Feb 2010)

Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957, Watercolor and pencil on board by Boris Chaliapin

In the story of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the figure who came to personify the substantial gains made toward eliminating racial discrimination was Atlanta preacher Martin Luther King Jr. A key strategist in such events as the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott and the nonviolent protests in Birmingham and Washington, D.C., he is remembered for his impassioned eloquence: "I have a dream that one day . . . this great nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

For his efforts in leading the yearlong transit boycott in Montgomery, Time magazine selected King for its cover of February 18, 1957. King would make the cover twice more, as Man of the Year for 1963, and in 1965.