Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia to Reverend Michael Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. He graduated from Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary, where he received his PhD. King became a Baptist minister and rose to prominence as the leader of the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He advocated for racial equality and desegregation through nonviolent civil disobedience. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He continues to be recognized today for his leadership role in the civil rights movement and his message of nonviolence.