Schools will be closed in observation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 15, 2018.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He worked as a Baptist minister and a civil rights activist and began making a significant impact on race relations in the mid-1950s. As head of the SCLC, he was also a major spokesperson for nonviolent activism during the Civil Rights Movement. This movement protested very successfully the racial discrimination perpetuated in federal and state law.

MLK therefore played a significant role in ending legal segregation of African-Americans in the South and across the nation, in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and also in the creation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. MLK is famous for his 1963, “I Have a Dream”. He received many honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, before he was assassinated in April 1968.