Martin Luther King Jr. Won the Nobel Peace Prize
On this day · 14 October 1964
At just 35, the civil rights leader became the youngest Nobel Peace laureate, honoured for a struggle waged without violence.
On October 14, 1964, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Martin Luther King Jr. the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The award recognised his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population, a campaign that had carried the American freedom movement from bus boycotts to the streets of Birmingham and the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
At 35 years old, King was the youngest person ever to receive the honour at the time. The news reached him while he was resting in an Atlanta hospital, far from the marches and jail cells that had defined the preceding decade.
A struggle could be waged without violence, and brotherly love could be made a reality.
King travelled to Oslo to accept the prize formally on December 10, 1964. He directed the prize money, then worth about $54,600, back into the civil rights movement rather than keeping it, framing the award as a tribute to the many who had marched alongside him.
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