10 Facts on MLK

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Do you know what his birth name was or that before his death, he had survived one assassination attempt?

With a national holiday and national monument in his honor it is easy to think the public knows everything about civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. While most Americans know why King became a legend and that his activism promoted equality,  parts of his life and legacy have not been widely publicized. Here are 10 little known facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was listed as “Michael King” on his birth certificate. King’s father said this was a mistake by the doctor because Martin Luther King Sr. was nicknamed “Mike” and the doctor assumed that Michael was his legal name rather than Martin.

King’s parents, Martin Sr. and Alberta had two other children—Willie Christine King and Alfred Daniel Williams King. Martin Jr. was the middle child.

A Morehouse graduate, King was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. The group played a key role in convincing the government to create the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, which opened in late 2011.

King and his wife, Coretta, met after a mutual friend give him her number. She was reportedly unimpressed by King's 5 feet 7 height. The two married after a yearlong courtship.

King was just 25 when he became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954.

Before his death, King had survived another assassination attempt. A mentally ill black woman, Izola Curr stabbed him on Sept. 20, 1958 at a book signing in Harlem.

King, born on Jan.uary15, 1929, was the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He donated $54,000 in prize money from the award to civil rights causes.

King seemed to have predicted his own death. The night before his assassination on April 4, 1968, he delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in which he remarked, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.”

A national King holiday was first proposed four days after his assassination on April 4, 1968 but not until 1983 did Congress agree to pass legislation in honor of the activist of a holiday. This is partly because in the years after his death, members of the public and politicians viewed King as a radical, communist and agitator who did not deserve such recognition.

The state of Arizona was the last to recognize the King holiday and the national Football League relocated Super Bowl XXVII to California because of Arizona’s refusal to honor the holiday. In 1992, Arizonans agreed to recognize it.