[阅读理解] Martin Luther King was a black minister, who became a great leader of the civil rights moveme...

[阅读理解]
Martin Luther King was a black minister, who became a great leader of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. When he was young, he was strongly influenced by Thoreau and Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi's idea of non-violent resistance. Having received a Ph. D (Doctor of Philosophy) from Boston University, he became a political and religious leader of the non-violent civil rights movement in 1955. On August 28, 1963, he led over 250,000 Americans on a march in Washington D.C. to fight for the Civil Rights Law to guarantee equality for all people, and delivered his best known speech "I Have a Dream" before the Lincoln Memorial. The "dream" is a dream of brotherly love and equality for the Black and White. Thus, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace in 1964, but he was murdered four years later.
Though he died, he was greatly respected and loved by the Americans, both the white and the black. By vote of Congress in 1968, the third Monday of every January is now a federal holiday in Luther King's honor. He lives in people's hearts forever. 3. Martin Luther King's Day has been a federal holiday for more than 40 years.