10 Things You Should Know About MLK On The 50th Anniversary Of His Assassination

Many people talk about the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. However, there are at least 10 interesting things people still don't know about him.

1. Birth name

Dr. King's birth name was not Martin. His birth name was Michael King when he was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. He was named after his father, but in 1934, both father and son changed their names from Michael to Martin Luther in honor of the German Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther.

2. Singer

We know King was a great orator, but he could also sing. When he was just 10 years old, he sang with his church choir at the premiere of "Gone with the Wind."

3. Received whippings

King's father whipped him on a regular basis until he was 15 years old. His father said he would make something of him even if he had to beat him to death.

4. Depression

The civil right activist spent most of his life being depressed. When he was 12 years old he became severely depressed over the death of his grandmother. He jumped out of a second-story window in an attempt to end his life. Because of years of depression, his autopsy showed that he had the heart of a 60-year-old man even though he was only 39 years old at the time of his death.

5. The Bible

In Sunday school when he was 13, Martin denied what the Bible said about Jesus dying on the cross and being resurrected from the dead. Later in life, he changed his mind and went on to become a prominent Baptist minister.

6. College at 15

When he was a junior in high school, Morehouse College needed to increase its enrollment and offered to accept high school juniors if they could pass the entrance exam. Even though he went to college at 15, he dropped out to go into ministry because he felt that that was his calling. He was already an ordained minister when he returned to Morehouse and graduated with a degree in sociology, and two years later he received a degree in theology from Crozier Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

7. Arrests

King was arrested 29 times because of his activism. Some of the charges were trumped up. For example, he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.

8. Failed assassination

Ten years before King was assassinated, a failed attempt was made on his life by Izola Ware Curry, a mentally deranged woman. She stabbed him with a seven-inch letter opener. After he underwent emergency surgery, he forgave the woman who almost caused his death.

9. Mother was assassinated

King's mother, Alberta Williams King, was killed the same way he was. She was shot in 1974 in her Atlanta church because of the work her son had done for racial equality.

10. Final speech

Many believe King prophesied his own death in his last speech when he talked about having seen the promised land and the glory of the coming of the Lord. More people quote the "I Have a Dream" speech than his last speech that was given on the day he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.