The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was a Baptist minister and African American civil rights activist. He organized and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, fair hiring, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted into United States law with the passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Voting Rights Act. He is perhaps most famous for his "I Have A Dream" speech, given in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington DC.