Though Martin Luther King Jr. is now a national hero and has more than 900 streets named after him nationally, there’s a lot more to this civil rights hero ( who would have been 87) than most of us knows. Unfortunately a lot of it has to deal with many of us not learning about it in school. Well TSR has compiled a list of 10 things your school most likely didn’t teach you about MLK Jr:
1. King was a friend to the LGBT community. Openly gay man Bayard Rustin worked closely with MLK Jr. to fully plan the 1963 March on Washington as well brought attention to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rustin was given credit later in history, mainly after he died. He experienced backlash for working with an openly gay man but never let it deter him from his main goals and plans.
2. When King died at age 39, he had the heart of a 60-year-old. Doctors came to the conclusion that his travesty was probably due to the stress he faced while organizing and making America a better place for black Americans.
3. King finished high school when most students his age were just starting. At age 15, he was entering as a freshman at Morehouse College.
4. King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. He pledged the first of all Black Greek letter organizations while furthering his education and getting his doctorate at Boston College.
5. King was stabbed in the chest by a black woman in 1958. It’s reported that the “demented woman” suspected MLK Jr. to be connected to the communist party.
6. King not only organized against extremist groups like the KKK but also wanted ‘white moderates’ or normal white people that did wrong to acknowledge civil rights as a movement that needed to be a reality. A white moderate to king was someone who was devoted to order more than justice.
7. The FBI tried in multiple ways to get MLK Jr. to commit suicide. One of the most prominent ways was by sending anonymous letters to his home. The letters often were sent from the perspective of a fellow black person and gave him time frames to commit the act telling him “there is only one thing left for you to do.”
8. King was the youngest man to ever win a Nobel Peace Prize. When he was awarded with the prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America in 1964, no one else close to his age of 35 had won.
9. King’s mother, Alberta Williams King, was assassinated in the summer of 1974 just six years after her son. Alberta King was in a church service at Ebenezer Baptist Church playing the organ when the shooter fired shots.
10. King is a Grammy winner. Though he died in 1968, the Grammy’s awarded him in 1971 for Best Spoken World album.
Sources: HuffPost Black Voices, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/martin-luther-king-facts-they-didnt-teach-you-in-school_us_5699305ae4b0ce4964244476?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000047
Indianapolis Recorder, http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/news/article_7a53930e-bada-11e5-9621-bfd05cd6286a.html
TSR Intern: Jalen M. @jalenmosby on IG and Twitter.
