Dr. King was a prominent and prolific writer and public speaker throughout his life. His quotations engraved at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, were thoughtfully selected to show many facets of King's thinking over the years. The quotes include excerpts from his Letter from Birmingham Jail, to his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, and the "I Have a Dream Speech" delivered just a short walk away at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, among many others.

On April 4, 1968 civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis. Riots broke out in more than 100 cities across the United States. The world has changed greatly since 1968, but King’s message survives intact. On the day of his death, King was in Tennessee to help support a sanitation workers’ strike. At the age of 39, he was already an internationally known figure. Starting with the Montgomery boycott in 1955, King had led a series of nonviolent protests against discrimination. In 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, at the time the youngest Peace Prize winner ever at the age of 35.