Hosea Williams

American civil rights activist and ordained minister

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|

Hosea Williams

Williams in 1966

Born|

Hosea Lorenzo Williams

(1926-01-05)January 5, 1926[1]

Attapulgus, Georgia, U.S.

Died| November 16, 2000(2000-11-16) (aged 74)[2][3]

Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Resting place| Lincoln Cemetery
(Atlanta, Georgia).
Occupations|

* activist
* minister
* philanthropist
* research chemist
* entrepreneur
* politician

Years active| 1956–2000
Known for| Activist during the civil rights movement
Spouse|

Juanita Terry Williams

(m. 1951; died 2000)​

Children| 7, including Elisabeth
Family| Porsha Williams (granddaughter)

Hosea Lorenzo Williams (January 5, 1926 – November 16, 2000) was an American civil rights leader, activist, ordained minister, businessman, philanthropist, scientist, and politician. He was considered a member of famed civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr.'s inner circle. Under the banner of their flagship organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King depended on Williams to organize and stir masses of people into nonviolent direct action in myriad protest campaigns they waged against racial, political, economic, and social injustice. King alternately referred to Williams, his chief field lieutenant, as his "bull in a china shop" and his "Castro." Vowing to continue King's work for the poor, Williams is well known in his own right as the founding president of one of the largest social services organizations in North America, Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless. His famous motto was "Unbought and Unbossed."[a]

## Background

[edit]

Williams was born in Attapulgus, Georgia, a small city in the far southwest corner of the state in Decatur County. Both of his parents were teenagers committed to a trade institute for the blind in Macon. His mother ran away from the institute upon learning of her pregnancy. At the age of 28, Williams stumbled upon his birth father, "Blind" Willie Wiggins, by accident in Florida.[4] His mother died during childbirth when he was 10 years old. He and his older sister, Theresa, were raised by his mother's parents, Lelar and Turner Williams. Williams was run out of town by a lynch mob at the age of 13 for allegedly consorting with a white girl.[5]

Williams served with the United States Army during World War II in an all Black American unit under General George S. Patton Jr. and advanced to the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was the only survivor of a Nazi bombing, which left him in a hospital in Europe for more than a year and earned him a Purple Heart.[6] Upon his return home from the war, Williams was savagely beaten by a group of angry whites at a bus station for drinking from a water fountain marked "Whites Only." He was beaten so badly that the attackers thought he was dead. They called a Black funeral home in the area to pick up the body. En route to the funeral home, the hearse driver noticed Williams had a faint pulse and was barely breathing, but was still alive. There were no hospitals in the area that would serve Blacks, even in the case of a medical emergency; the trip to the nearest veterans' hospital was well over a hundred miles. Williams spent more than a month hospitalized recuperating from injuries sustained in the attack.

Of the attack, Williams was quoted as saying, "I was deemed 100 percent disabled by the military and required a cane to walk. My wounds had earned me a Purple Heart. The war had just ended and I was still in my uniform for God's sake! But on my way home, to the brink of death, they beat me like a common dog. The very same people whose freedoms and liberties I had fought and suffered to secure in the horrors of war ... they beat me like a dog ... merely because I wanted a drink of water." He went on to say, "I had watched my best buddies tortured, murdered, and bodies blown to pieces. The French battlefields had literally been stained with my blood and fertilized with the rot of my loins. So at that moment, I truly felt as if I had fought on the wrong side. Then, and not until then, did I realize why God, time after time, had taken me to death's door, then spared my life ... to be a general in the war for human rights and personal dignity." After the war, he earned a high school diploma at the age of 23, then a bachelor's degree and a master's degree (both in chemistry) from Atlanta's Morris Brown College and Atlanta University (present-day Clark Atlanta University). Williams was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. Williams' birthday coincided with the anniversary of the death of one of that organization's most prominent members, George Washington Carver. After college, Williams worked for the United States Department of Agriculture as an analytical chemist in Savannah from 1952 until 1963, in its Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine chemistry laboratory where his work focused on insecticide analysis and he would develop a method of pyrethrin determination. In 1976, Williams founded the Southeast Chemical Manufacturing and Distributing Company, which manufactured and sold specialized cleaning supplies. Williams would go on to found three other chemical companies and a bonding company.

## Early civil rights activism

[edit]

Hosea Williams, image and text from recognition documents distributed by the Alabama Dept. of Public Safety in the mid–1960s.

Williams first joined the NAACP, during which time he was a leader in the Savannah Protest Movement. However, he later became a leader in the SCLC along with Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, James Bevel, Joseph Lowery, and Andrew Young, among many others. He played an important role in the demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida, that some claim led to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.[7]

While organizing during the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement he also led the first attempt at a 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, and was tear gassed and beaten severely. On March 7, 1965 – a day that would become known as "Bloody Sunday" – Williams and fellow activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. At the end of the bridge, they were met by Alabama State Troopers who ordered them to disperse. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. Repercussions from the "Bloody Sunday" attempt led to the other great legislative accomplishment of the movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

After leaving the SCLC, Williams played an active role in supporting strikes in the Atlanta, Georgia, area by black workers who had first been hired because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[7]

## Political career

[edit]

In the 1966 Georgia gubernatorial race, Williams opposed both the Democratic nominee, segregationist Lester Maddox, and the Republican choice, U.S. Representative Howard Callaway. He challenged Callaway on myriad issues relating to civil rights, minimum wage, federal aid to education, urban renewal, and indigent medical care. Williams claimed that Callaway had purchased the endorsement of the Atlanta Journal. Ultimately, after a general election deadlock, Maddox was elected governor by the state legislature.[8]

Campaign button used in Williams' 1972 primary race

In 1972, Williams ran in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by the late Richard Russell, Jr. He polled 46,153 votes (6.4 percent). The nomination and the election went to fellow Democrat Sam Nunn. In 1974, Williams was elected to the Georgia Senate where he served five terms as a Democrat, until 1984. In 1985, he was elected to the Atlanta City Council, serving for five years, until his election in 1989 when he ran for Mayor of Atlanta but lost to Maynard Jackson. That same year Williams successfully campaigned for a seat on the DeKalb County, Georgia County Commission which he held until 1994. Williams supported former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter for president in 1976 but surprised many Black civil rights figures in 1980 by joining Ralph Abernathy and Charles Evers in endorsing Ronald Reagan. By 1984, however, he had soured on Reagan's policies, and returned to the Democrats to support Walter F. Mondale.

Williams delivering a speech at a rally, 1974.[9]

On January 17, 1987, Williams led a "March Against Fear and Intimidation" in Forsyth County, Georgia, which at the time (before becoming a major exurb of northern metro Atlanta) had no non-white residents. The ninety marchers were assaulted with stones and other objects by several hundred counter-demonstrators led by the Nationalist Movement and Ku Klux Klan. The following week 20,000, including senior civil rights leaders and government officials marched. Forsyth County began to slowly integrate in the following years with the expansion of the Atlanta suburbs.[citation needed] In 1971, Hosea Williams founded a non-profit foundation, Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless, widely known in Atlanta for providing hot meals, haircuts, clothing, and other services for the needy on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Easter Sunday each year. Williams' daughter Elizabeth Omilami serves as head of the foundation. In 1974, Williams organized the International Wrestling League (IWL), based in Atlanta, with Thunderbolt Patterson serving as president. Among other entrepreneurial endeavors, he founded Hosea Williams Bail Bonds Inc, a bail bond agency located in Decatur, Ga.

## Family and death

[edit]

In early 1951, Williams married Juanita Terry. Together, Williams and Terry had eight children. Williams died at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, after a three-year battle with cancer on November 16, 2000. Funeral services were held at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where close friend Martin Luther King Jr., was once the co-pastor. Williams was preceded in death by his wife three months prior and by his son Hosea II two years earlier. Williams is interred at Lincoln Cemetery.

## Legacy

[edit]

Williams’ first comprehensive biography, Hosea Williams: A Lifetime of Defiance and Protest, was written by Dr. Rolundus R. Rice, an educator and historian who currently serves as COO and Vice President of Student Affairs at Tuskegee University. Rice traces Williams's journey from a local activist in Georgia to a national leader and one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s chief lieutenants.[10]

Boulevard Drive in the southeastern area of Atlanta was renamed Hosea L Williams Drive shortly before Williams died. Hosea Williams Drive runs by the site of his former home in the East Lake neighborhood at the intersection of Hosea L. Williams Drive and East Lake Drive. Hosea L. Williams Papers are housed at Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in Atlanta. His daughter Elisabeth Omilami also maintains a traveling exhibit of valuable civil rights memorabilia. Williams was portrayed by Wendell Pierce in the 2014 film Selma.

Williams' granddaughter Porsha Williams stars on the Bravo reality TV series, The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

## See also

[edit]

* List of civil rights leaders
* List of members of the American Legion

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ "Unbought and Unbossed" was also the motto of former U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York City.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ King Encyclopedia – Hosea Williams
2. ^ Mettler, Suzanne (2004). Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199887095. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
3. ^ Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement. Rowman & Littlefield. 2001. ISBN 9780810880375. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
4. ^ Branch, Taylor (1998). Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 124. ISBN 0-684-80819-6.
5. ^ Wheatley, Thomas. "Circa: Atlanta's Past In Pictures". Atlanta Magazine (April 2018): 128.
6. ^ "International Civil Rights: Walk of Fame - Hosea Williams". www.nps.gov. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
7. ^ a b "Civil Rights Act of 1964". Archived from the original on October 21, 2010. Retrieved October 2, 2008.
8. ^ Billy Hathorn, "The Frustration of Opportunity: Georgia Republicans and the Election of 1966", Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South, XXXI (Winter 1987–1988), p. 44.
9. ^ Black Leaders of The Civil Rights Movement
10. ^ "Hosea Williams: A Lifetime of Defiance and Protest". uscpress.com. Retrieved March 25, 2024.

## External links

[edit]

* Williams v. Forsyth County Defense League, Federal-court complaint by Hosea Williams
* Daniel Lewis, "Hosea Williams, 74, Rights Crusader, Dies", The New York Times, November 17, 2000
* New Georgia Encyclopedia: Hosea Williams (1926–2000) Archived April 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Biographical information
* Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless Official Site
* Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History Archived October 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
* Giving back {Hosea Feed the Hungry}
* Hosea Williams Bail Bonds

* v
* t
* e

Civil rights movement (1954–1968)

Events
(timeline)|

| Prior to 1954|

* Journey of Reconciliation
* Executive Order 9981
* Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
* Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
* McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
* Baton Rouge bus boycott

|

1954–1959|

* Brown v. Board of Education
* Bolling v. Sharpe
* Briggs v. Elliott
* Davis v. Prince Edward County
* Gebhart v. Belton
* Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company
* Emmett Till
* Montgomery bus boycott
* Browder v. Gayle
* Tallahassee bus boycott
* Mansfield school desegregation
* 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
* "Give Us the Ballot"
* Royal Ice Cream sit-in
* Little Rock Nine
* Cooper v. Aaron
* Civil Rights Act of 1957
* Ministers' Manifesto
* Katz Drug Store sit-in
* Kissing Case
* Biloxi wade-ins

1960–1963|

* New Year's Day March
* Sit-in movement
* Greensboro sit-ins
* Nashville sit-ins
* Sibley Commission
* Atlanta sit-ins
* Savannah Protest Movement
* Greenville Eight
* Civil Rights Act of 1960
* Ax Handle Saturday
* New Orleans school desegregation
* Gomillion v. Lightfoot
* Boynton v. Virginia
* University of Georgia desegregation riot
* Rock Hill sit-ins
* Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address
* Freedom Rides
* Anniston and Birmingham bus attacks
* Garner v. Louisiana
* Albany Movement
* Cambridge movement
* University of Chicago sit-ins
* "Second Emancipation Proclamation"
* Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot
* Atlanta's Berlin Wall
* "Segregation now, segregation forever"
* Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
* 1963 Birmingham campaign
* Letter from Birmingham Jail
* Children's Crusade
* Birmingham riot
* 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
* John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights
* Detroit Walk to Freedom
* March on Washington
* "I Have a Dream"
* Big Six
* St. Augustine movement

1964–1968|

* Twenty-fourth Amendment
* Chester school protests
* Bloody Tuesday
* 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests
* Freedom Summer
* workers' murders
* Civil Rights Act of 1964
* Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
* Katzenbach v. McClung
* 1964–1965 Scripto strike
* 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
* "How Long, Not Long"
* SCOPE Project
* Voting Rights Act of 1965
* Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
* March Against Fear
* White House Conference on Civil Rights
* Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement
* Loving v. Virginia
* Memphis sanitation strike
* King assassination
* funeral
* riots
* Civil Rights Act of 1968
* Poor People's Campaign
* Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
* Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
* 1968 Olympics Black Power salute

Activist
groups|

* Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
* American Friends Service Committee
* Atlanta Negro Voters League
* Atlanta Student Movement
* Black Panther Party
* Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
* Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
* Committee for Freedom Now
* Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
* An Appeal for Human Rights
* Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
* Council of Federated Organizations
* Dallas County Voters League
* Deacons for Defense and Justice
* Georgia Council on Human Relations
* Highlander Folk School
* Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
* Lowndes County Freedom Organization
* Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
* Montgomery Improvement Association
* NAACP
* Youth Council
* Nashville Student Movement
* Nation of Islam
* Northern Student Movement
* National Council of Negro Women
* National Urban League
* Operation Breadbasket
* Regional Council of Negro Leadership
* Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
* Southern Regional Council
* Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
* The Freedom Singers
* United Auto Workers (UAW)
* Wednesdays in Mississippi
* Women's Political Council

Activists|

* Juanita Abernathy
* Ralph Abernathy
* Victoria Gray Adams
* Zev Aelony
* Mathew Ahmann
* Muhammad Ali
* William G. Anderson
* Gwendolyn Armstrong
* Arnold Aronson
* Ella Baker
* James Baldwin
* Marion Barry
* Daisy Bates
* Harry Belafonte
* James Bevel
* Claude Black
* Gloria Blackwell
* Randolph Blackwell
* Unita Blackwell
* Ezell Blair Jr.
* Joanne Bland
* Julian Bond
* Joseph E. Boone
* William Holmes Borders
* Amelia Boynton
* Bruce Boynton
* Raylawni Branch
* Stanley Branche
* Ruby Bridges
* Aurelia Browder
* H. Rap Brown
* Ralph Bunche
* John H. Calhoun
* Guy Carawan
* Stokely Carmichael
* Johnnie Carr
* James Chaney
* J. L. Chestnut
* Shirley Chisholm
* Colia Lafayette Clark
* Ramsey Clark
* Septima Clark
* Xernona Clayton
* Eldridge Cleaver
* Kathleen Cleaver
* Josephine Dobbs Clement
* Charles E. Cobb Jr.
* Annie Lee Cooper
* Dorothy Cotton
* Claudette Colvin
* Vernon Dahmer
* Jonathan Daniels
* Abraham Lincoln Davis
* Angela Davis
* Joseph DeLaine
* Dave Dennis
* Annie Bell Robinson Devine
* John Wesley Dobbs
* Patricia Stephens Due
* Joseph Ellwanger
* Charles Evers
* Medgar Evers
* Myrlie Evers-Williams
* Chuck Fager
* James Farmer
* Walter Fauntroy
* James Forman
* Marie Foster
* Golden Frinks
* Andrew Goodman
* Robert Graetz
* Fred Gray
* Jack Greenberg
* Dick Gregory
* Lawrence Guyot
* Prathia Hall
* Fannie Lou Hamer
* Fred Hampton
* William E. Harbour
* Vincent Harding
* Dorothy Height
* Audrey Faye Hendricks
* Lola Hendricks
* Aaron Henry
* Oliver Hill
* Donald L. Hollowell
* James Hood
* Myles Horton
* Zilphia Horton
* T. R. M. Howard
* Ruby Hurley
* Cecil Ivory
* Jesse Jackson
* Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Richie Jean Jackson
* T. J. Jemison
* Esau Jenkins
* Barbara Rose Johns
* Vernon Johns
* Frank Minis Johnson
* Clarence Jones
* J. Charles Jones
* Matthew Jones
* Vernon Jordan
* Tom Kahn
* Clyde Kennard
* A. D. King
* C.B. King
* Coretta Scott King
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Martin Luther King Sr.
* Bernard Lafayette
* James Lawson
* Bernard Lee
* Sanford R. Leigh
* Jim Letherer
* Stanley Levison
* John Lewis
* Viola Liuzzo
* Z. Alexander Looby
* Joseph Lowery
* Clara Luper
* Danny Lyon
* Malcolm X
* Mae Mallory
* Vivian Malone
* Bob Mants
* Thurgood Marshall
* Benjamin Mays
* Franklin McCain
* Charles McDew
* Ralph McGill
* Floyd McKissick
* Joseph McNeil
* James Meredith
* William Ming
* Jack Minnis
* Amzie Moore
* Cecil B. Moore
* Douglas E. Moore
* Harriette Moore
* Harry T. Moore
* Queen Mother Moore
* William Lewis Moore
* Irene Morgan
* Bob Moses
* William Moyer
* Elijah Muhammad
* Diane Nash
* Charles Neblett
* Huey P. Newton
* Edgar Nixon
* Jack O'Dell
* James Orange
* Rosa Parks
* James Peck
* Charles Person
* Homer Plessy
* Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
* Fay Bellamy Powell
* Rodney N. Powell
* Al Raby
* Lincoln Ragsdale
* A. Philip Randolph
* George Raymond
* George Raymond Jr.
* Bernice Johnson Reagon
* Cordell Reagon
* James Reeb
* Frederick D. Reese
* Walter Reuther
* Gloria Richardson
* David Richmond
* Bernice Robinson
* Jo Ann Robinson
* Angela Russell
* Bayard Rustin
* Bernie Sanders
* Michael Schwerner
* Bobby Seale
* Pete Seeger
* Cleveland Sellers
* Charles Sherrod
* Alexander D. Shimkin
* Fred Shuttlesworth
* Modjeska Monteith Simkins
* Glenn E. Smiley
* A. Maceo Smith
* Kelly Miller Smith
* Mary Louise Smith
* Maxine Smith
* Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
* Charles Kenzie Steele
* Hank Thomas
* Dorothy Tillman
* A. P. Tureaud
* Hartman Turnbow
* Albert Turner
* C. T. Vivian
* A. T. Walden
* Wyatt Tee Walker
* Hollis Watkins
* Walter Francis White
* Roy Wilkins
* Hosea Williams
* Kale Williams
* Robert F. Williams
* Q. V. Williamson
* Andrew Young
* Whitney Young
* Sammy Younge Jr.
* Bob Zellner
* James Zwerg

By region|

* Omaha, Nebraska
* South Carolina

Movement
songs|

* "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
* "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
* "Kumbaya"
* "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
* "Oh, Freedom"
* "This Little Light of Mine"
* "We Shall Not Be Moved"
* "We Shall Overcome"
* "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"

Influences|

* Nonviolence
* Padayatra
* Sermon on the Mount
* Mahatma Gandhi
* Ahimsa
* Satyagraha
* The Kingdom of God Is Within You
* Frederick Douglass
* W. E. B. Du Bois
* Mary McLeod Bethune

Related|

* Lyndon B. Johnson
* Jim Crow laws
* Lynching in the United States
* Plessy v. Ferguson
* Separate but equal
* Buchanan v. Warley
* Hocutt v. Wilson
* Sweatt v. Painter
* Hernandez v. Texas
* Loving v. Virginia
* African-American women in the movement
* Jews in the civil rights movement
* Fifth Circuit Four
* 16th Street Baptist Church
* Kelly Ingram Park
* A.G. Gaston Motel
* Bethel Baptist Church
* Brown Chapel
* Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
* Holt Street Baptist Church
* Edmund Pettus Bridge
* March on Washington Movement
* African-American churches attacked
* List of lynching victims in the United States
* Freedom Schools
* Freedom songs
* Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
* "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
* Voter Education Project
* 1960s counterculture
* African American founding fathers of the United States
* Eyes on the Prize

Legacy|

* In popular culture
* Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
* Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
* Civil Rights Memorial
* Civil Rights Movement Archive
* Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
* Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
* Freedom Rides Museum
* Freedom Riders National Monument
* King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
* Martin Luther King Jr. Day
* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
* other King memorials
* Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
* National Civil Rights Museum
* National Voting Rights Museum
* St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
* Olympic Black Power Statue

Noted
historians|

* Taylor Branch
* Clayborne Carson
* John Dittmer
* Michael Eric Dyson
* Chuck Fager
* Adam Fairclough
* David Garrow
* David Halberstam
* Vincent Harding
* Steven F. Lawson
* Doug McAdam
* Diane McWhorter
* Charles M. Payne
* Thomas E. Ricks
* Timothy Tyson
* Akinyele Umoja
* Movement photographers

Civil rights movement portal

* v
* t
* e

Martin Luther King Jr.

Speeches, writings, movements, and protests

| Speeches|

* "Give Us the Ballot" (1957)
* "I Have a Dream" (1963)
* "How Long, Not Long" (1965)
* "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" (1967)
* "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (1968)

|

Writings|

* Stride Toward Freedom (1958)
* "What Is Man?" (1959)
* "Second Emancipation Proclamation"
* Strength to Love (1963)
* "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)
* Why We Can't Wait (1964)
* Conscience for Change (1967)
* Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

Movements
and protests|

* Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956)
* Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom (1957)
* Albany Movement (1961–1962)
* Birmingham campaign (1963)
* March on Washington (1963)
* St. Augustine movement (1963–1964)
* Selma to Montgomery marches (1965)
* Chicago Freedom Movement (1966)
* Mississippi March Against Fear (1966)
* Anti-Vietnam War movement (1967)
* Memphis sanitation strike (1968)
* Poor People's Campaign (1968)

Organizations|

* Montgomery Improvement Association
* Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

People

| Family|

* Coretta Scott King (wife)
* Yolanda King (daughter)
* Martin Luther King III (son)
* Dexter King (son)
* Bernice King (daughter)
* Martin Luther King Sr. (father)
* Alberta Williams King (mother)
* Christine King Farris (sister)
* A. D. King (brother)
* James Albert King (grandfather)
* Alveda King (niece)

|

Other
leaders|

* Ralph Abernathy (mentor, colleague)
* Ella Baker (colleague)
* James Bevel (strategist / colleague)
* Dorothy Cotton (colleague)
* Jesse Jackson (protégé)
* Bernard Lafayette (colleague)
* James Lawson (colleague)
* John Lewis (colleague)
* Joseph Lowery (colleague)
* Benjamin Mays (mentor)
* Diane Nash (colleague)
* James Orange (colleague)
* Bayard Rustin (advisor)
* Fred Shuttlesworth (colleague)
* C. T. Vivian (colleague)
* Wyatt Walker (colleague)
* Hosea Williams (colleague)
* Andrew Young (colleague)

Assassination

* Lorraine Motel (now National Civil Rights Museum)
* Riots
* Funeral
* James Earl Ray
* Jack Kershaw
* U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)
* Martin Luther King Jr. Records Collection Act
* Loyd Jowers
* Trial
* Conspiracy theories
* Executive Order 14176

Media

| Film|

* King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970 documentary)
* Our Friend, Martin (1999 animated)
* Boycott (2001 film)
* The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 (2008 documentary)
* Selma (2014 film)
* All the Way (2016 film)
* King in the Wilderness (2018 documentary)
* MLK/FBI (2020 documentary)
* Rustin (2023 film)

|

Television|

* King (1978 miniseries)
* "The First Store" (The Jeffersons, 1980)
* "Great X-Pectations" (A Different World, 1993)
* "The Promised Land" (New York Undercover, 1997)
* Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)
* "Return of the King" (The Boondocks, 2006)
* Alpha Man: The Brotherhood of MLK (2011 documentary)
* Genius (MLK/X, 2024)

Plays|

* The Meeting (1987)
* The Mountaintop (2009)
* I Dream (2010)
* All the Way (2012)

Books|

* Stride Toward Freedom (1958)
* Bearing the Cross (1986)
* King: A Life (2023)

Illustrated|

* Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story (1957 comic book)

Music|

* "Abraham, Martin and John" (Dion)
* "March! For Martin Luther King" (John Fahey)
* "Martin Luther King's Dream" (Strawbs)
* "Happy Birthday" (Stevie Wonder)
* "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (U2)
* "MLK" (U2)
* "King Holiday" (King Dream Chorus and Holiday Crew)
* "By the Time I Get to Arizona" (Public Enemy)
* "Shed a Little Light" (James Taylor)
* "Up to the Mountain" (Patti Griffin)
* "Never Alone Martin" (Jason Upton)
* "Symphony of Brotherhood" (Miri Ben-Ari)
* Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World; Nicolas Flagello: The Passion of Martin Luther King (1995 album)
* "A Dream" (Common featuring will.i.am)
* "Glory" (Common and John Legend)

Related|

* Civil rights movement in popular culture
* Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc.
* King v. Trustees of Boston Univ.

Related topics

| Memorials and
eponymous locations|

* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
* National Historical Park
* King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
* Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
* National Civil Rights Museum
* U.S. Capitol Rotunda sculpture
* Oval Office bust
* Homage to King sculpture, Atlanta
* Hope Moving Forward statue, Atlanta
* Safe House Black History Museum
* Statues of Martin Luther King Jr.
* Atlanta
* Boston
* Denver
* Houston
* Jersey City
* Milwaukee
* Mexico City
* Newark
* Pueblo, Colorado
* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco
* Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (Compton)
* Landmark for Peace Memorial, Indianapolis
* The Dream sculpture, Portland, Oregon
* Kennedy–King College
* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C.
* Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose
* Paris park
* Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
* King County, Washington
* Eponymous streets

|

Other topics|

* Martin Luther King Jr. Day
* passage
* Big Six
* African American founding fathers of the United States
* Authorship issues
* FBI–King suicide letter
* Martin Luther King Jr., A Current Analysis
* Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity
* Season for Nonviolence
* America in the King Years
* Civil rights movement in popular culture
* Lee–Jackson–King Day

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States

Other|

* NARA
* SNAC
* Yale LUX

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