He was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
King received the Nobel Peace Prize on October 14, 1964, in recognition of his "nonviolent battle for civil rights for the Afro-American population." He was the youngest recipient of the coveted award at the time, at the age of 35 which is one of the interesting facts about Martin Luther King Jr.. In order to further the civil rights movement, he would donate the $54,123 prize money to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
At age 35, Martin Luther King Jr. was the youngest man to ever earn the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent work to end racial inequality. His prize included a check for $54,123, which he gave to a number of groups, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), in order to advance the civil rights movement.
He assisted in the planning of two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. In his later years, he broadened his agenda to include resistance to the Vietnam War, capitalism, and poverty. When King was killed on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee, he was preparing a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be known as the Poor People's Campaign. After his passing, there was widespread sadness throughout the country as well as the rage that sparked riots in numerous American cities. King received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1977. Beginning in 1971, Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a recognized holiday in towns and states across the nation. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a recognized federal holiday. He has inspired the renaming of hundreds of American streets, as well as the rededication of Washington State's most populous county in his honor. 2011 saw the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
