This Day in Black History, Oct. 14: Dr. King Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

What Happened

On October 14, 1964, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At 35 years old, he was the youngest person ever to receive the honor. The committee cited his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the United States. Dr. King donated the entire $54,600 prize to the Civil Rights Movement. He received the award in Oslo in December 1964 — the same year the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. He was assassinated less than four years later, in April 1968.

Why It Still Matters

The Nobel Prize didn't make Dr. King's work legitimate — his work was already legitimate. What it did was force the world to acknowledge what Black Americans already knew: that the struggle for civil rights in America was not a local problem. It was a moral crisis that the entire world was watching. And Dr. King, who had been wiretapped by the FBI and called a troublemaker by people who should have known better, stood in Oslo and accepted that prize on behalf of every person who had marched, been beaten, been jailed, and kept going.

Around the Kitchen Table

Where were you when you first really understood who Dr. King was — not just the holiday version, but the full picture? Was there a speech, a book, a conversation with an elder that showed you the man behind the monument? And what did it change about how you saw the movement?

Today on Grown Folks Bizness

History and Grown Folks Say. Dr. King was 35 years old when he won the Nobel Prize. He had already been to jail, had his home bombed, and been stabbed. He kept going anyway. Today we're talking about what it means to commit to something bigger than yourself — and what that costs.

Sources

NobelPrize.org · The King Center · HISTORY

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