Martin Luther King Jr.: A look back in history

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is shown speaking to an overflow crowd at a mass meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church. King, leader of the mass bus boycott, was found guilty March 22, 1956 of conspiracy in the Montgomery bus boycott. He was fined $500. King said the boycott of city buses will continue “no matter how many times they convict me.” (AP Photo/Gene Herrick)

AP Photo/Gene Herrick

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., right, accompanied by Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, center, is booked by city police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 23, 1956. The civil rights leaders are arrested on indictments turned by the Grand Jury in the bus boycott. (AP Photo/Gene Herrick)

AP Photo/Gene Herrick

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is welcomed with a kiss by his wife Coretta after leaving court in Montgomery, Ala., March 22, 1956. King was found guilty of conspiracy to boycott city buses in a campaign to desegregate the bus system, but a judge suspended his $500 fine pending appeal. (AP Photo/Gene Herrick)

AP Photo/Gene Herrick

Two black ministers who were active in the long boycott of segregated buses were among the first to ride, December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court’s integration order went into effect in Montgomery, Ala. At left, front seat, is the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy. At left, second seat, is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and at the right is a white minister, the Rev. Glenn Smiley of New York, who said he was in Montgomery as an observer. The woman is unidentified. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., of Montgomery, Alabama speaks at a mass demonstration before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington as civil rights leaders called on the government to put more teeth in the Supreme Court’s desegregation decisions, May 17, 1957. King said both Democrats and Republicans have betrayed the cause of justice on civil rights questions. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry)

AP Photo/Charles Gorry

A makeup man puts a little powder on Martin Luther King’s brow before a television program in Washington, Aug. 13, 1957. The president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference discussed the current racial situation on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs)

AP Photo/Henry Burroughs

Martin Luther King Jr. recovers from surgery in bed at New York’s Harlem Hospital on following an operation to remove steel letter opener from his chest after being stabbed by a mentally disturbed woman as he signed books in Harlem. The New York City surgeon, Dr. John W.V. Cordice, who was part of the medical team that saved King the nearly fatal stab wound has died at the age of 95. The death was announced Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2013, by the city agency that oversees Harlem Hospital Center, where Cordice was formerly an attending surgeon and chief of thoracic surgery. (AP Photo/John Lent., File)

AP Photo/John Lent., File

Martin Luther King Jr. speaks in Atlanta. A 1960 recording of an interview with King never before heard in public is up for sale. The tape was recorded by a Chattanooga man hoping to write a book and captures King talking about his trip to Africa, and his certainty that the child he and Coretta Scott King were expecting would be a boy. (AP File Photo)

AP File Photo

Martin Luther King speaks in Atlanta in 1960. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Martin Luther King speaks in Atlanta in 1960. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Martin Luther King speaks in Atlanta in 1960. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. under arrest by Atlanta Police Captain R.E. Little, left rear, passes through a picket line in front of a downtown department store on Oct. 9, 1960. with King is another demonstration leader, Lonnie King and an unidentified woman. The integration leader was among the 48 African-Americans arrested following demonstrations at several department and variety stores protesting lunch counter segregation. (AP Photo/stf)

AP Photo/stf

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., right, looks out the window of a police car as he and other sit-in demonstrators are taken to jail, Oct. 19, 1960. Driver the car is Atlanta Police Capt. R.E. Little. King was among 52 blacks arrested following demonstrations at several department and variety stores protesting lunch counter segregation. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

U.S. Sen. Joseph Clark (D-Pa.), center, laughs along with Dr. Martin Luther King, left, leader against segregation, at Lincoln University commencement exercises, June 7, 1961, Oxford, Pa. At right is acting President Donald Yelton. (AP Photo/Sam Myers)

AP Photo/Sam Myers

Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, shakes hands with Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Ga., at the White House in Washington with President John F. Kennedy at right. Historians generally agree that Kennedy’s phone call to Coretta Scott King expressing concern over her husband’s arrest in October 1960, and Robert Kennedy’s work behind the scenes to get King released, helped JFK win the White House that fall. (AP Photo, File)

AP Photo, File

Rev. Ralph Abernathy, left, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. lead a column of demonstrators as they attempt to march on Birmingham, Ala., city hall April 12, 1963. Police intercepted the group short of their goal. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)

AP Photo/Horace Cort

A police officer holds the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. by his belt as he leads him to the paddy wagon, following arrest at an anti-segregation protest in downtown Birmingham, Ala., on April 13, 1963. An unidentified cameraman is documenting the scene. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks to an overflow crowd in Detroit?s Cobo Hall Arena on Sunday, June 24, 1963, following a Freedom March. An estimated 100,000 walkers paraded to the hall through downtown Detroit and gathered in the hall and overflowed outside to hear him speak on the rights of Blacks. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledges the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial for his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington, D.C. Aug. 28, 1963. Thursday April 4, 1996 will mark the 28th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tenn. The Washington Monument is in background. (AP Photo/File)

AP Photo/File

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The 45th anniversary of the iconic leader’s most memorable speech coincides with the day when another African-American leader, Barack Obama, is scheduled to makes a historic speech of his own, accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States Aug. 28, 2008, in Denver, Colo. (AP Photo/File)

AP Photo/File

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tells a mass meeting in Birmingham, Alabama Sept. 17, 1963 that words and actions of Alabama Gov. George Wallace were to blame for the deaths of four African American girls in a church bombing. The meeting of about 1,200 persons voted to state a march on the state capitol in Montgomery to protest racial violence. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is heavily guarded as he speaks to an estimated crowd of 2,500 who braved freezing weather to attend an anti-segregation rally in downtown Hurt Park Sunday Dec. 16, 1963 in Atlanta. Police said the integration leader’s life had not been threatened, but the officers were a precautionary measure. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is heavily guarded as he speaks to an estimated crowd of 2,500 who braved freezing weather to attend an anti-segregation rally in downtown Hurt Park in Atlanta Sunday, Dec. 16, 1963. Police said the integration leaders life had not been threatened, but the officers were a precautionary measure. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)

AP Photo/Horace Cort

The Rev. Martin Luther King addresses a crowd estimated at 70,000 at a civil rights rally in Chicagos Soldier Fielld June 21, 1964. King told the rally that congressional approval of civil rights legislation heralds The dawn of a new hope for the Negro. (AP Photo/Charles E. Knoblock)

AP Photo/Charles E. Knoblock

Integration leader Dr. Martin Luther King looks at a glass door of his rented beach cottage in St. Augustine, Fla. that was shot into by someone unknown on June 5, 1964. King took time out from conferring with St. Augustine integration leaders to inspect the house, which no one was in at the time of the shooting. (AP Photo/Jim Kerlin)

AP Photo/Jim Kerlin

In his photo released by the Vatican, Pope Paul VI poses at the Vatican with American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during a private audience, Sept. 18, 1964. With the pontiff and King are Msgr. Paolo Marcinkus of Chicago, who acted as interpreter, and with King is his aide, Dr. Ralph Abernathy, right. (AP Photo/Vatican Photo)

AP Photo/Vatican Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. displays his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize medal in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 1964. The 35-year-old Dr. King was honored for promoting the principle of non-violence in the civil rights movement. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., delivers his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in the auditorium of Oslo University in Norway on Dec. 10, 1964. King, the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace prize, is recognized for his leadership in the American civil rights movement and for advocating non violence. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at a Selma, Ala., church in this January 1965 photo. A never-before-published speech given by King in Selma during a 1965 visit is included in “Ripples of Hope,” a collection of 110 speeches from the 1780s to the 1990s, on topics from women’s suffrage to gay rights. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is attacked by States Rights Party member Jimmy Robinson as King tries to register at the Hotel Albert in Selma, Ala., Jan. 18, 1965. The woman at left is trying to avoid the altercation. King was not injured. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)

AP Photo/Horace Cort

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., right, and Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark glare at each other in Selma, Alabama on Jan. 26, 1965 as the sheriff orders King to stand off of sidewalk as he watches African Americans stand in line to register to vote. The sheriff kept everyone from blocking the sidewalk. Several incidents broke out and several were arrested. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)

AP Photo/Horace Cort

Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., right, winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, receives a glass bowl inscribed to him as a “Citizen of Atlanta, with respect and admiration,” from Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of the Temple Synagogue in Atlanta, Jan. 28, 1965. The award was presented at a banquet sponsored by Atlanta citizens in honor of King’s receiving the Nobel Prize. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Martin Luther King in February 1965. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Wilson Baker, left, Selma, Alabama director of public safety, holds up his hand in front of Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., Feb. 1, 1965 to tell him that he and his followers, about 250 of them, were under arrest for parading without a permit. (AP Photo/Bill Hudson)

AP Photo/Bill Hudson

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as he preaches the funeral in Marion, Alabama on March, 1965 of Jimmy Lee Jackson, slain during a racial demonstration. King later led mourners three miles in the rain to a cemetery for burial. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Martin Luther King Jr. (center) leads a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965. To King’s left in hat is Ralph Abernathy. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses a megaphone to address demonstrators assembled at the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. after a meeting with Sheriff Mac Butler, left, and other public officials. (AP Photo/File)

AP Photo/File

Rev. Martin Luther King with his wife Coretta participate in march from Montgomery, Ala., to the state capitol on March 19, 1965. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Martin Luther King attacks slum conditions at an apartment building in Chicago, Illinois on Feb. 23, 1966. Al Raby, CCO, and King and several Catholic priests use shovels to clean up wheelbarrows of trash and ashes from the basement from stair steps. (AP Photo/Edward Kitch)

AP Photo/Edward Kitch

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., center, speaks to reporters as he leads the 220 mile Memphis to Jackson march started by James Meredith, in a rural part of Mississippi, June 13, 1966. King and other civil rights leaders decided to continue the march after original leader, James Meredith, was shot and wounded shortly after starting out. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Dr. Martin Luther King civil rights leader testifying before the Senate Government Operations subcommittee, December 15, 1966. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

A large portion of the estimated 5,000 who listened intently to Dr. Martin Luther King, arrow, lower right, from Sproul Hall, University of California administration building in Berkeley, California, May 17, 1967. Dr. King reiterated his stand for non-violence and urged that young people support a peace bloc that would influence the 1968 elections. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

President Lyndon B Johnson (1908 – 1973) discusses the Voting Rights Act with civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968). The act, part of President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ program trebled the number of black voters in the south, who had previously been hindered by racially inspired laws, 1965. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Over 200,000 people gather around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, where the civil rights March on Washington ended with Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. (Photo by Kurt Severin/Getty Images)

Photo by Kurt Severin/Getty Images

American civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968) lying in state in Memphis, Tennessee, as his colleagues pay their respects to him (right to left); Andrew Young, Bernard Lee and Reverend Ralph Abernathy (1926 – 1990). (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Photo by Keystone/Getty Images