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We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal

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Civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. is best remembered
for his use of civil disobedience to advance equal rights for African Americans

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As the only non-president to have a national holiday in the United States named
after him, you'd think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be very well known

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But the truth is, what most people have heard about the
legendary civil rights activist barely scratches the surface

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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise
up and live out the true meaning of its creed

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So today we're going to take a look at some surprising
and little-known facts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

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When he was only 12 years old, Martin Luther King decided to go to a parade instead
of staying home and watching his little brother, A.D., who was six at the time

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Lacking any supervision, A.D. slid down a banister and
ran into their grandmother, knocking her unconscious

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The incident triggered a heart attack, from which she died. Martin blamed himself for
her death, even though it had nothing to do with her having been knocked unconscious

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Embroiled with grief, the future civil rights leader tried to end his
own life by jumping out of the second-story window of his family's home

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His father later recalled that Martin was troubled for quite a while following
the passing of his grandmother and had started to have difficulty sleeping

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It probably won't surprise anyone to hear this, but Martin
Luther King was a smart man, and he was also a pretty smart kid

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In fact, young Martin did so well in school
that he was able to skip grades 9 and 12

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and was even accepted into college
as a freshman at the age of 15

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Following in the footsteps of his father and
grandfather, he attended Morehouse College in 1944

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Initially, King had no interest in becoming a Baptist minister, even though his
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been called to the ministry

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However, Benjamin E. Mays, the president of Morehouse,
eventually persuaded King to change his mind

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King also received an undergraduate degree in sociology and
went on to obtain his second bachelor's degree in divinity

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from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. By the time he
was 25, he had earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University

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Boston University is my alma mater. I meant so much to me in terms of
the formulation of my thinking and the ideas that have guided my life

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In the 1940s, Martin Luther King was
attending seminary school in Pennsylvania

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While he was there, he started dating a German woman
named Betty, who was working as a cafeteria employee

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However, Martin's friends urged him to break up with Betty, pointing
out that his father would not approve of their interracial relationship

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nor of his son dating someone below his station.
According to David Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross

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King was heartbroken after he split with Betty and
had a difficult time getting over their relationship

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However, the change didn't help much. King's father did
not ultimately like his son's wife, Coretta Scott, either

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So was this just a case of a father who didn't
think anyone was good enough for his son

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No, he was actually hoping Martin Jr. would
marry an opera singer named Matawilda Dobbs

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Young Martin had gotten a summer job
harvesting tobacco near Hartford, Connecticut

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Hailing from a middle-class Southern family, he was surprised to learn that not
everyone in the United States treated African Americans as second-class citizens

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He wrote in a letter to his father, On our way here,
we saw some things I had never anticipated to see

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After we passed Washington, there was no discrimination
at all. The white people here are very nice

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We go to any place we want to and sit anywhere
we want to. He added in a note to his mother

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I never thought that a person of my race could eat anywhere,
but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford

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and we went to the largest shows there.
I think that is an answer to that myth

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and it is that time is neutral. In the 1950s, before he had
begun advocating for passive resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King

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actually applied for a permit to carry a concealed
weapon. He possessed a collection of firearms for

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self-defense and was often surrounded by armed
guards who protected him and his family. In fact

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King had so many guns, one of King's colleagues,
Glenn Smiley, even referred to King's home as

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an arsenal. Now, to be clear, King wasn't just
a gun collector. He had some really good reasons

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to fear for his life. For example, the Ku Klux
Klan in Alabama had put a price on his head

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and he was receiving daily death threats.
Moreover, both his home and churches in Montgomery

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had been bombed. We must not
despair. We must not become bitter

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Now must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. Martin Luther King was no stranger to danger He was the
recipient of countless threats and he survived at least one assassination attempt That was really really close

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It was a book signing in 1958. A woman named
Izzola Ware Curry approached King, saying

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I've been looking for you for five years. After which,
she stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener

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Well-meaning bystanders were about to pull the letter opener
out of the wound, which would have almost certainly killed King

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Luckily, two New York City police officers stopped
them. Instead, the police rushed King to Harlem Hospital

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where doctors spent a labor-intensive
three hours trying to remove the instrument

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Turns out it was positioned dangerously close to King's
aorta, and even the slightest slip would have killed him

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If you're wondering why Curry attacked King, the answer seems
to be that she suffered from a variety of mental illnesses

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Later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Curry would spend
the rest of her life in psychiatric facilities and nursing homes

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If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year
in August to try to tell America about a dream that I had had

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Fighting the system often means doing a little time. And during his
many years of social advocacy, King was arrested on numerous occasions

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In fact, over the course of his life, he was sent
to jail 29 times, mostly for civil disobedience

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There were also some very questionable
arrests. For example, one occurred in 1956

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King was sent to jail in Montgomery, Alabama,
for driving five miles over the speed limit

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Yeah, that's right. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., famed leader of the Civil Rights Movement

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and author of some of the most famous speeches
about race relations in the history of the world

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loved him some Star Trek. It's actually not that
surprising. Trek was a progressive show for its time

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boldly going where no television show had gone before. For example,
Star Trek featured the first interracial kiss ever on television

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King was so into it, he can actually be
credited with persuading Nichelle Nichols

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to stay on as Uhura on Star Trek following the end of season
one. Nichols says that King wanted her to stay on the show

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not only because she was a black woman
playing a main character on television

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but because her character wasn't written based on
popular stereotypes. Nichols' character was intelligent

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and the other crew members regarded her as an equal.
Security sweeps of all decks are negative, Mr. Spock

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No evidence of intrude. Very well. Cancel
red alert, but maintain increased security

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Aye, sir. Also, Uhura was pretty awesome, which we suspect wasn lost on
King the Trekkie Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4 1968

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in Memphis, Tennessee. Eerily, the night before
he died, he spoke to a group of people at Mason

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Temple Church, telling his audience that he may
not get to see the promised land alongside them

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King said, like anybody, I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now

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I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want
you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land

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Although he was known to smoke regularly, there are actually very
few photos of Martin Luther King with a cigarette in his mouth

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This is because King very actively hid his
habit. He did this for two major reasons

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First, there was a social stigma attached to cigarette
smoking, particularly since he was a minister

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And second, he didn't want his children to see him smoke and take
up the habit. Regardless, he couldn't seem to give up the habit

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and on the very day he was assassinated, he was
on the balcony of his hotel smoking a cigarette

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After he died, his friend, the Reverend Samuel Billy Kyles,
allegedly removed a pack of cigarettes from King's pocket

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to conceal the fact that he had been smoking when he was
killed. In 1974, six years after Dr. King was assassinated

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his mother, Alberta Williams King, was
killed. She was playing the organ at church

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when a man named Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. stood
up in the front pew of the Ebenezer Baptist Church

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He pulled out two pistols and began firing. Chenault
had actually intended to kill King's father

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but killed Alberta instead because she was closer to him. She
died in the same church where her son preached nonviolence

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Initially, Chenault was given the death penalty for
his crime. But King's family opposed capital punishment

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and petitioned for him to receive life imprisonment
instead. Martin Luther King Jr. won a Grammy

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but not for wailing out a few hot tunes.
He didn't possess a secret singing ability

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that we know of. Following his
death, King won a Grammy Award

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for best spoken word album of 1971.
He received the honor for his album

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Why I Opposed the War in Vietnam. If you're
wondering why he opposed the war in Vietnam

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he said, I see this war as an
unjust, evil, and futile war

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I preach to you today because my
conscience leaves me with no other choice

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And I don't know about you, I
ain't going to study war no more