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A t-shirt that pays homage to two iconic black men

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. "MARTIN" LOGO T-SHIRT (2XL)

DETAILS:

Two great Martins, one great graphic tee!

Are you passionate about celebrating black excellence and looking for a unique and witty way to do so? Look no further! Introducing the Martin Luther King Jr. "Martin" t-shirt, a powerful combination of support for two remarkable individuals. This shirt features a clever parody of the iconic logo from Martin Lawrence's beloved TV show, "Martin." But unlike the original logo, the graphic pays tribute to the great Martin Luther King Jr., a legendary civil rights leader who made an indelible impact on our society.

With its witty graphic and quality material, this t-shirt is not only a fashionable choice but also a statement piece. It represents unity, progress, and a shared admiration for historic achievements. And by wearing it, you proudly showcase your support for two brilliant examples of distinguished black men.

Imagine the conversations you'll spark and the powerful messages you'll send by wearing this Martin Luther King Jr. "Martin" t-shirt. It's an opportunity to educate others about the remarkable life and impact of Martin Luther King Jr., all while paying homage to a comedy classic.

Whether you're attending a social event, gathering with friends and family, or simply going about your daily routine, this t-shirt allows you to share your values and spark meaningful discussions. It's a reminder that black excellence is not just a concept, but a rich tapestry of remarkable individuals who have shaped history.

Printed on an extra comfortable Bella+Canvas brand charcoal gray polyester blend fabric. This blend consists of 50% polyester, 25% cotton, and 25% rayon, making it a soft, breathable, and durable choice.

One-of-a-kind!
This t-shirt is a wearable tribute to two exceptional black figures and a one-of-a-kind print. We embarked on an exhaustive search online, combing through countless websites, forums, and marketplaces, only to find no trace of another Martin Luther King "Martin" t-shirt just like this. It seems this graphic t-shirt is a one-off, custom designed print likely made by a fan. It's rarity makes it a must-have for all Martin Lawrence and/or Martin Luther King Jr. enthusiasts.

Size/Fit:

Men's classic fit 2X-Large (XXL, 2XL).

CONDITION:

In excellent, pre-owned condition. Please see photos.

To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out.

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"Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. A Black church leader and a son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted, nonviolent resistance against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination in the United States.

King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights.[1] He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The SCLC put into practice the tactics of nonviolent protest with some success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who frequently responded violently.[2] King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In 1964, the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.[3]

On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War. In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and King County in Washington was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.
Early life and education
Birth

King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second of three children to Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née Williams).[4][5][6] King had an older sister, Christine King Farris, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King.[7] Alberta's father, Adam Daniel Williams,[8] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved to Atlanta in 1893,[6] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the following year.[9] Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks.[6] King Sr. was born to sharecroppers James Albert and Delia King of Stockbridge, Georgia,[5][6] and was of African-Irish descent.[10][11][12] In his adolescent years, King Sr. left his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta where he attained a high school education,[13][14][15] and enrolled in Morehouse College to study for entry to the ministry.[15] King Sr. and Alberta began dating in 1920, and married on November 25, 1926.[16][17] Until Jennie's death in 1941, they lived together on the second floor of Alberta's parents' two-story Victorian house, where King was born.[18][16][17][19]

Shortly after marrying Alberta, King Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church.[17] Senior pastor Williams died in the spring of 1931[17] and, that fall, King Sr. took the role. With vital support from his wife, he would in time raise attendance from six hundred to several thousand.[6][17][20] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip, including to Berlin for the meeting of the Congress of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).[21] He also visited sites in Germany that were associated with the Reformation leader, Martin Luther.[21] While there, King Sr. and the BWA delegates witnessed the rise of Nazism.[21] In reaction, the BWA issued a resolution stating, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any part of the world."[22] On returning home in August 1934, King Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. and his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.[21][23][16][a]
Early childhood
King's childhood home in Atlanta, Georgia

At his childhood home, King and his two siblings would read aloud the Bible as instructed by their father.[25] After dinners there, King's grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to as "Mama", would tell lively stories from the Bible to her grandchildren.[25] King's father would regularly use whippings to discipline his children.[26] At times, King Sr. would also have his children whip each other.[26] King's father later remarked, "[King] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the tears would run down, and he'd never cry."[27] Once, when King witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked out A.D. with it.[26][28] When he and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit into their grandmother, Jennie, causing her to fall unresponsive.[29][28] King, believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window.[30][28] Upon hearing that his grandmother was alive, King rose and left the ground where he had fallen.[30]

King became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his family's home.[31] In September 1935, when the boys were about six years old, they started school.[31][32] King had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School,[31][33] while his close playmate went to a separate school for white children only.[31][33] Soon afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored".[31][34] When King relayed the happenings to his parents, they had a long discussion with him about the history of slavery and racism in America.[31][35] Upon learning of the hatred, violence and oppression that black people had faced in the U.S., King would later state that he was "determined to hate every white person".[31] His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.[35]

King witnessed his father stand up against segregation and various forms of discrimination.[36] Once, when stopped by a police officer who referred to King Sr. as "boy", King's father responded sharply that King was a boy but he was a man.[36] When King's father took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed to sit in the back.[37] King's father refused, stating "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy any shoes at all", before taking King and leaving the store.[14] He told King afterward, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it."[14] In 1936, King's father led hundreds of African Americans in a civil rights march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination.[26] King later remarked that King Sr. was "a real father" to him.[38]

King memorized and sang hymns, and stated verses from the Bible, by the time he was five years old.[30] Over the next year, he began to go to church events with his mother and sing hymns while she played piano.[30] His favorite hymn to sing was "I Want to Be More and More Like Jesus"; he moved attendees with his singing.[30] King later became a member of the junior choir in his church.[39] King enjoyed opera, and played the piano.[40] As he grew up, King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries and consistently used his expanding lexicon.[28] He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of words to stymie fights.[28][40] King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that he carried throughout his life.[40] In 1939, King sang as a member of his church choir in slave costume, for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone with the Wind.[41][42] In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School for the seventh grade.[43][44] While there, King took violin and piano lessons, and showed keen interest in his history and English classes.[43]

On May 18, 1941, when King had sneaked away from studying at home to watch a parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother.[38] Upon returning home, he found out that she had suffered a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital.[19] He took the death very hard and believed that his deception of going to see the parade may have been responsible for God taking her.[19] King jumped out of a second-story window at his home, but again survived an attempt to kill himself.[19][27][28] His father instructed him in his bedroom that King should not blame himself for her death, and that she had been called home to God as part of God's plan that could not be changed.[19][45] King struggled with this, and could not fully believe that his parents knew where his grandmother had gone.[19] Shortly thereafter, King's father decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill that overlooked downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

In his adolescent years, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure in the segregated South.[46] In 1942, when King was 13 years old, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal.[47] That year, King skipped the ninth grade and was enrolled in Booker T. Washington High School, where he maintained a B-plus average.[45][48] The high school was the only one in the city for African-American students.[17] It had been formed after local black leaders, including King's grandfather (Williams), urged the city government of Atlanta to create it.[17]

While King was brought up in a Baptist home, King grew skeptical of some of Christianity's claims as he entered adolescence.[49] He began to question the literalist teachings preached at his father's church.[50] At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school.[51][50] King said that he found himself unable to identify with the emotional displays and gestures from congregants frequent at his church, and doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction from religion.[52][50] He later stated of this point in his life, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."[53][51][50]

In high school, King became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into an orotund baritone.[54][48] He proceeded to join the school's debate team.[54][48] King continued to be most drawn to history and English,[48] and chose English and sociology to be his main subjects while at the school.[55] King maintained an abundant vocabulary.[48] However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with his spelling, while King assisted her with math.[48] They studied in this manner routinely until Christine's graduation from high school.[48] King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly adorning himself in well polished patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends.[56][57][58][59] He further grew a liking for flirting with girls and dancing.[58][57][60] His brother A. D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town."[57]

On April 13, 1944, in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during an oratorical contest, sponsored by the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World in Dublin, Georgia.[61][57][62][63] In his speech he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man. Even winners of our highest honors face the class color bar."[64][61] King was selected as the winner of the contest.[61][57] On the ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that white passengers could sit down.[57][65] The driver of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch".[57] King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law if he did not follow the directions of the driver.[65] As all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand on the rest of the drive back to Atlanta.[57] Later King wrote of the incident, saying "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."[65]
Morehouse College

During King's junior year in high school, Morehouse College—an all-male historically black college that King's father and maternal grandfather had attended[66][67]—began accepting high school juniors who passed the school's entrance examination.[57][68][65] As World War II was underway many black college students had been enlisted in the war, decreasing the numbers of students at Morehouse College.[57][68] So, the university aimed to increase their student numbers by allowing juniors to apply.[57][68][65] In 1944, at the age of 15, King passed the entrance examination and was enrolled at the university for the school season that autumn.[b][57][68][66][69]

In the summer before King started his freshman year at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, Connecticut, at the tobacco farm of Cullman Brothers Tobacco (a cigar business).[70][71] This was King's first trip outside of the segregated south into the integrated north.[72][73] In a June 1944 letter to his father King wrote about the differences that struck him between the two parts of the country, "On our way here we saw some things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit any where we want to."[72] The students worked at the farm to be able to provide for their educational costs at Morehouse College, as the farm had partnered with the college to allot their salaries towards the university's tuition, housing, and other fees.[70][71] On weekdays King and the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco from 7:00am till at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F, to earn roughly USD$4 per day.[71][72] On Friday evenings, King and the other students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, and on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to see theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.[71][73] On each Sunday they would go to Hartford to attend church services, at a church filled with white congregants.[71] King wrote to his parents about the lack of segregation in Connecticut, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites go to the same church".[71][74][72]

He played freshman football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the ministry. Throughout his time in college, King studied under the mentorship of its president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays, who he would later credit with being his "spiritual mentor".[75] King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity". His "inner urge" had begun developing, and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest."[76] King graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen....Marriage and family

While studying at Boston University, he asked a friend from Atlanta named Mary Powell, who was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music, if she knew any nice Southern girls. Powell asked fellow student Coretta Scott if she was interested in meeting a Southern friend studying divinity. Scott was not interested in dating preachers but eventually agreed to allow Martin to telephone her based on Powell's description and vouching. On their first phone call, King told Scott "I am like Napoleon at Waterloo before your charms," to which she replied, "You haven't even met me." They went out for dates in his green Chevy. After the second date, King was certain Scott possessed the qualities he sought in a wife. She had been an activist at Antioch as an undergraduate student.

King married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama.[98] They became the parents of four children: Yolanda King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (b. 1957), Dexter Scott King (b. 1961), and Bernice King (b. 1963).[99] During their marriage, King limited Coretta's role in the civil rights movement, expecting her to be a housewife and mother.[100]

In December 1959, after being based in Montgomery for five years, King announced his return to Atlanta at the request of the SCLC.[101] In Atlanta, King served until his death as co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and helped expand the Civil Rights Movement across the South....Activism and organizational leadership
Montgomery bus boycott, 1955
Main articles: Montgomery bus boycott and Jim Crow laws § Public arena

The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where King was called to be a minister in 1954, was influential in the Montgomery, Alabama, African-American community. As the church's pastor, he became known for his oratorical preaching in Montgomery and the surrounding region.[102]

In March 1955, Claudette Colvin—a fifteen-year-old black schoolgirl in Montgomery—refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in violation of Jim Crow laws, local laws in the Southern United States that enforced racial segregation. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; E. D. Nixon and Clifford Durr decided to wait for a better case to pursue because the incident involved a minor.[103]

Nine months later on December 1, 1955, a similar incident occurred when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus.[104] The two incidents led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was urged and planned by Nixon and led by King.[105] King was in his twenties, and had just taken up his clerical role. The other ministers asked him to take a leadership role simply because his relative newness to community leadership made it easier for him to speak out. King was hesitant about taking the role but decided to do so if no one else wanted it.[106]

The boycott lasted for 385 days,[107] and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.[108] King was arrested for traveling 30 mph in a 25 mph zone[109] and jailed during this campaign, which overnight drew the attention of national media, and greatly increased King's public stature. The controversy ended when the United States District Court issued a ruling in Browder v. Gayle that prohibited racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.[110] Blacks resumed riding the buses again, and were able to sit in the front with full legal authorization.[1][106]

King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.[111]
Southern Christian Leadership Conference

In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct nonviolent protests in the service of civil rights reform. The group was inspired by the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, who befriended King,[112] as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by King allies Stanley Levison and Ella Baker.[113] King led the SCLC until his death.[114] The SCLC's 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom was the first time King addressed a national audience.[115] Other civil rights leaders involved in the SCLC with King included: James Bevel, Allen Johnson, Curtis W. Harris, Walter E. Fauntroy, C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, The Freedom Singers, Cleveland Robinson, Randolph Blackwell, Annie Bell Robinson Devine, Charles Kenzie Steele, Alfred Daniel Williams King, Benjamin Hooks, Aaron Henry and Bayard Rustin.[116]
The Gandhi Society

Harry Wachtel joined King's legal advisor Clarence B. Jones in defending four ministers of the SCLC in the libel case Abernathy et al. v. Sullivan; the case was litigated about the newspaper advertisement "Heed Their Rising Voices". Wachtel founded a tax-exempt fund to cover the suit's expenses and assist the nonviolent civil rights movement through a more effective means of fundraising. This organization was named the "Gandhi Society for Human Rights". King served as honorary president for the group. He was displeased with the pace that President Kennedy was using to address the issue of segregation. In 1962, King and the Gandhi Society produced a document that called on the President to follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln and issue an executive order to deliver a blow for civil rights as a kind of Second Emancipation Proclamation. Kennedy did not execute the order.[117] The FBI was under written directive from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy when it began tapping King's telephone line in the fall of 1963.[118] Kennedy was concerned that public allegations of communists in the SCLC would derail the administration's civil rights initiatives. He warned King to discontinue these associations and later felt compelled to issue the written directive that authorized the FBI to wiretap King and other SCLC leaders.[119] FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover feared the civil rights movement and investigated the allegations of communist infiltration. When no evidence emerged to support this, the FBI used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years, as part of its COINTELPRO program, in attempts to force King out of his leadership position [3]

King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the civil rights movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.[120][121]

King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights.[1] Most of these rights were successfully enacted into the law of the United States with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.[122][123]

The SCLC put into practice the tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent.[2]
Survived knife attack, 1958

On September 20, 1958, King was signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein's department store in Harlem[124] when he narrowly escaped death. Izola Curry—a mentally ill black woman who thought that King was conspiring against her with communists—stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, which nearly impinged on the aorta. King received first aid by police officers Al Howard and Philip Romano.[125] King underwent emergency surgery with three doctors: Aubre de Lambert Maynard, Emil Naclerio and John W. V. Cordice; he remained hospitalized for several weeks. Curry was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the 1960 elections

Georgia governor Ernest Vandiver expressed open hostility towards King's return to his hometown in late 1959. He claimed that "wherever M. L. King Jr., has been there has followed in his wake a wave of crimes", and vowed to keep King under surveillance.[128] On May 4, 1960, several months after his return, King drove writer Lillian Smith to Emory University when police stopped them. King was cited for "driving without a license" because he had not yet been issued a Georgia license. King's Alabama license was still valid, and Georgia law did not mandate any time limit for issuing a local license.[129] King paid a fine but was unaware that his lawyer agreed to a plea deal that also included a probationary sentence.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Student Movement had been acting to desegregate businesses and public spaces in the city, organizing the Atlanta sit-ins from March 1960 onwards. In August the movement asked King to participate in a mass October sit-in, timed to highlight how 1960's Presidential election campaign had ignored civil rights. The coordinated day of action took place on October 19. King participated in a sit-in at the restaurant inside Rich's, Atlanta's largest department store, and was among the many arrested that day. The authorities released everyone over the next few days, except for King. Invoking his probationary plea deal, judge J. Oscar Mitchell sentenced King on October 25 to four months of hard labor. Before dawn the next day, King was taken from his county jail cell and transported to Georgia State Prison.[130]

The arrest and harsh sentence drew nationwide attention. Many feared for King's safety, as he started a prison sentence with people convicted of violent crimes, many of them White and hostile to his activism.[131] Both Presidential candidates were asked to weigh in, at a time when both parties were courting the support of Southern Whites and their political leadership including Governor Vandiver. Nixon, with whom King had a closer relationship before, declined to make a statement despite a personal visit from Jackie Robinson requesting his intervention. Nixon's opponent John F. Kennedy called the governor (a Democrat) directly, enlisted his brother Robert to exert more pressure on state authorities, and also, at the personal request of Sargent Shriver, made a phone call to King's wife to express his sympathy and offer his help. The pressure from Kennedy and others proved effective, and King was released two days later. King's father decided to openly endorse Kennedy's candidacy for the November 8 election which he narrowly won.[132]

After the October 19 sit-ins and following unrest, a 30-day truce was declared in Atlanta for desegregation negotiations. However, the negotiations failed and sit-ins and boycotts resumed in full swing for several months. On March 7, 1961, a group of Black elders including King notified student leaders that a deal had been reached: the city's lunch counters would desegregate in fall 1961, in conjunction with the court-mandated desegregation of schools.[133][134] Many students were disappointed at the compromise. In a large meeting on March 10 at Warren Memorial Methodist Church, the audience was hostile and frustrated towards the elders and the compromise. King then gave an impassioned speech calling participants to resist the "cancerous disease of disunity", and helping to calm tensions.[135]
Albany Movement, 1961
Main article: Albany Movement

The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. In December, King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel."[136] The following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. According to King, "that agreement was dishonored and violated by the city" after he left town.[136]

King returned in July 1962 and was given the option of forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine (equivalent to $1,700 in 2022); he chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Police Chief Laurie Pritchett discreetly arranged for King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. "We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail."[137] It was later acknowledged by the King Center that Billy Graham was the one who bailed King out of jail during this time.[138]

After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote nonviolence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts.[139] Though the Albany effort proved a key lesson in tactics for King and the national civil rights movement,[140] the national media was highly critical of King's role in the defeat, and the SCLC's lack of results contributed to a growing gulf between the organization and the more radical SNCC. After Albany, King sought to choose engagements for the SCLC in which he could control the circumstances, rather than entering into pre-existing situations.[141]
Birmingham campaign, 1963
Main article: Birmingham campaign

In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Wyatt Tee Walker. Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and sit-ins, openly violating laws that they considered unjust.

King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."[143] The campaign's early volunteers did not succeed in shutting down the city, or in drawing media attention to the police's actions. Over the concerns of an uncertain King, SCLC strategist James Bevel changed the course of the campaign by recruiting children and young adults to join in the demonstrations.[144] Newsweek called this strategy a Children's Crusade.[145][146]

During the protests, the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs against protesters, including children. Footage of the police response was broadcast on national television news and dominated the nation's attention, shocking many white Americans and consolidating black Americans behind the movement.[147] Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm's way. But the campaign was a success: Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow" signs came down, and public places became more open to blacks. King's reputation improved immensely.[145]

King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest[148] out of 29.[149] From his cell, he composed the now-famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that responds to calls on the movement to pursue legal channels for social change. The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern political prisoner".[150] King argues that the crisis of racism is too urgent, and the current system too entrenched: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."[151] He points out that the Boston Tea Party, a celebrated act of rebellion in the American colonies, was illegal civil disobedience, and that, conversely, "everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal'."[151] Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.

March on Washington, 1963
Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

King, representing the SCLC, was among the leaders of the "Big Six" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963. The other leaders and organizations comprising the Big Six were Roy Wilkins from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney Young, National Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; John Lewis, SNCC; and James L. Farmer Jr., of the Congress of Racial Equality.[153]

Bayard Rustin's open homosexuality, support of socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin,[154] which King agreed to do.[155] However, he did collaborate in the 1963 March on Washington, for which Rustin was the primary logistical and strategic organizer.[156][157] For King, this role was another which courted controversy, since he was one of the key figures who acceded to the wishes of United States President John F. Kennedy in changing the focus of the march.[158][159]

Kennedy initially opposed the march outright, because he was concerned it would negatively impact the drive for passage of civil rights legislation. However, the organizers were firm that the march would proceed.[160] With the march going forward, the Kennedys decided it was important to work to ensure its success. President Kennedy was concerned the turnout would be less than 100,000. Therefore, he enlisted the aid of additional church leaders and Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers, to help mobilize demonstrators for the cause.

Chicago open housing movement, 1966
Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement

In 1966, after several successes in the south, King, Bevel, and others in the civil rights organizations took the movement to the North, with Chicago as their first destination. King and Ralph Abernathy, both from the middle class, moved into a building at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue, in the slums of North Lawndale[199] on Chicago's West Side, as an educational experience and to demonstrate their support and empathy for the poor.[200]

The SCLC formed a coalition with CCCO, Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, an organization founded by Albert Raby, and the combined organizations' efforts were fostered under the aegis of the Chicago Freedom Movement.[201] During that spring, several white couple/black couple tests of real estate offices uncovered racial steering: discriminatory processing of housing requests by couples who were exact matches in income, background, number of children, and other attributes.[202] Several larger marches were planned and executed: in Bogan, Belmont Cragin, Jefferson Park, Evergreen Park (a suburb southwest of Chicago), Gage Park, Marquette Park, and others.[201][203][204]

King later stated and Abernathy wrote that the movement received a worse reception in Chicago than in the South. Marches, especially the one through Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, were met by thrown bottles and screaming throngs. Rioting seemed very possible.[205][206] King's beliefs militated against his staging a violent event, and he negotiated an agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley to cancel a march in order to avoid the violence that he feared would result.[207] King was hit by a brick during one march, but continued to lead marches in the face of personal danger.[208]

When King and his allies returned to the South, they left Jesse Jackson, a seminary student who had previously joined the movement in the South, in charge of their organization.[209] Jackson continued their struggle for civil rights by organizing the Operation Breadbasket movement that targeted chain stores that did not deal fairly with blacks.[210]

A 1967 CIA document declassified in 2017 downplayed King's role in the "black militant situation" in Chicago, with a source stating that King "sought at least constructive, positive projects."[211]
Opposition to the Vietnam War

King was long opposed to American involvement in the Vietnam War,[214] but at first avoided the topic in public speeches in order to avoid the interference with civil rights goals that criticism of President Johnson's policies might have created.[214] At the urging of SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of Muhammad Ali,[215] King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war as opposition was growing among the American public.[214]

During an April 4, 1967, appearance at the New York City Riverside Church—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence".[216] He spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony"[217] and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today".[218] He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change:

    A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."[219]

King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. He summed up this aspect by saying, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."[219] He stated that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands",[220] and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children".[221] King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms.[222]

King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham, union leaders and powerful publishers.[223][224][225] "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[226] complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children".[227] Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",[219] and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."[227][228]

The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with which he was affiliated.[229][230] King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice.[231][232] He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism.[233][234]

King stated in "Beyond Vietnam" that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar ... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."[235] King quoted a United States official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."[235] King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said that the U.S. should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution.[235]

King's stance on Vietnam encouraged Allard K. Lowenstein, William Sloane Coffin and Norman Thomas, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 United States presidential election. King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal on the grounds that he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited for his morally unambiguous role as an activist.[236]

On April 15, 1967, King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. The march was organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and initiated by its chairman, James Bevel. At the U.N. King brought up issues of civil rights and the draft:

    I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.[237]

Seeing an opportunity to unite civil rights activists and anti-war activists,[215] Bevel convinced King to become even more active in the anti-war effort.[215] Despite his growing public opposition towards the Vietnam War, King was not fond of the hippie culture which developed from the anti-war movement.[238] In his 1967 Massey Lecture, King stated:

    The importance of the hippies is not in their unconventional behavior, but in the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people, in turning to a flight from reality, are expressing a profoundly discrediting view on the society they emerge from.[238]

On January 13, 1968 (the day after President Johnson's State of the Union Address), King called for a large march on Washington against "one of history's most cruel and senseless wars".[239][240]

    We need to make clear in this political year, to congressmen on both sides of the aisle and to the president of the United States, that we will no longer tolerate, we will no longer vote for men who continue to see the killings of Vietnamese and Americans as the best way of advancing the goals of freedom and self-determination in Southeast Asia.[239][240]

Correspondence with Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thích Nhất Hạnh was an influential Vietnamese Buddhist who taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. He had written a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 entitled: "In Search of the Enemy of Man". It was during his 1966 stay in the US that Nhất Hạnh met with King and urged him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War.[241] In 1967, King gave a famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City, his first to publicly question the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.[242] Later that year, King nominated Nhất Hạnh for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize. In his nomination, King said, "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of [this prize] than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity".[243]
Poor People's Campaign, 1968
Main article: Poor People's Campaign
Rows of tents

In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice. King traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights" for poor Americans.[244][245]

The campaign was preceded by King's final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? which laid out his view of how to address social issues and poverty. King quoted from Henry George and George's book, Progress and Poverty, particularly in support of a guaranteed basic income.[246][247][248] The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States.

King and the SCLC called on the government to invest in rebuilding America's cities. He felt that Congress had shown "hostility to the poor" by spending "military funds with alacrity and generosity". He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided "poverty funds with miserliness".[245] His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism", and argued that "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."[249]

The Poor People's Campaign was controversial even within the civil rights movement. Rustin resigned from the march, stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, that its demands were unrealizable, and that he thought that these campaigns would accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black.[250]
Global policy

King was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution.[251][252] As a result, in 1968, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
The march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern U.S. and an opportunity to place organizers' concerns and grievances squarely before the seat of power in the nation's capital. Organizers intended to denounce the federal government for its failure to safeguard the civil rights and physical safety of civil rights workers and blacks. The group acquiesced to presidential pressure and influence, and the event ultimately took on a far less strident tone.[162] As a result, some civil rights activists felt it presented an inaccurate, sanitized pageant of racial harmony; Malcolm X called it the "Farce on Washington", and the Nation of Islam forbade its members from attending the march.[162][163]
I Have a Dream

The march made specific demands: an end to racial segregation in public schools; meaningful civil rights legislation, including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment; protection of civil rights workers from police brutality; a $2 minimum wage for all workers (equivalent to $19 in 2022); and self-government for Washington, D.C., then governed by congressional committee.[164][165][166] Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success.[167] More than a quarter of a million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall and around the reflecting pool. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington, D.C.'s history.[167]
I Have a Dream
Main article: I Have a Dream

King delivered a 17-minute speech, later known as "I Have a Dream". In the speech's most famous passage – in which he departed from his prepared text, possibly at the prompting of Mahalia Jackson, who shouted behind him, "Tell them about the dream!"[168][169] – King said:[170]

    I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

    I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

    I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

    I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

    I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

    I have a dream today.

    I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

    I have a dream today.

"I Have a Dream" came to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.[171] The March, and especially King's speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers in the United States and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[172][173]

The original typewritten copy of the speech, including King's handwritten notes on it, was discovered in 1984 to be in the hands of George Raveling, the first African-American basketball coach of the University of Iowa. In 1963, Raveling, then 26 years old, was standing near the podium, and immediately after the oration, impulsively asked King if he could have his copy of the speech, and he got it.[174]
St. Augustine, Florida, 1964
Main article: St. Augustine movement

In March 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with Robert Hayling's then-controversial movement in St. Augustine, Florida. Hayling's group had been affiliated with the NAACP but was forced out of the organization for advocating armed self-defense alongside nonviolent tactics. However, the pacifist SCLC accepted them.[175][176] King and the SCLC worked to bring white Northern activists to St. Augustine, including a delegation of rabbis and the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts, all of whom were arrested.[177][178] During June, the movement marched nightly through the city, "often facing counter demonstrations by the Klan, and provoking violence that garnered national media attention." Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed. During this movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.[179]
Biddeford, Maine, 1964

On May 7, 1964, King spoke at Saint Francis College's "The Negro and the Quest for Identity", in Biddeford, Maine. This was a symposium that brought many civil rights leaders together such as Dorothy Day and Roy Wilkins.[180][181] King spoke about how "We must get rid of the idea of superior and inferior races," through nonviolent tactics.[182]
New York City, 1964
King at a press conference in March 1964

On February 6, 1964, King delivered the inaugural speech[183] of a lecture series initiated at the New School called "The American Race Crisis". In August 2013, almost 50 years later, the school discovered an audiotape with 15 minutes of a question-and-answer session that followed King's address. In these remarks, King referred to a conversation he had recently had with Jawaharlal Nehru in which he compared the sad condition of many African Americans to that of India's untouchables.[184] The original speech recording is part of a collection of audiotapes in Amherst College's Archives & Special Collections in 1989.[185] Dr. King's speech had been rebroadcast on Amherst's student-run radio station, WAMF (now WAMH). The tape was digitized in the fall of 2015 and shared with The New School Archives. In his March 18, 1964, interview by Robert Penn Warren, King compared his activism to his father's, citing his training in non-violence as a key difference. He also discusses the next phase of the civil rights movement and integration.[186]
Scripto strike in Atlanta, 1964
Main article: 1964–1965 Scripto strike

Starting in November 1964, King supported a labor strike led by several hundred workers at the Scripto factory in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta, just a few blocks from Ebenezer Baptist.[187] Many of the strikers were also congregants of his church, and the strike was supported by other civil rights leaders in the city.[187] King helped elevate the labor dispute from a local to nationally known event and led the SCLC to organize a nationwide boycott of Scripto products.[187] However, as the strike stretched into December, King, who was wanting to focus more on a civil rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, began to negotiate in secret with Scripto's president Carl Singer and eventually brokered a deal where the SCLC would call off their boycott in exchange for the company giving the striking employees their Christmas bonuses.[187] King's involvement in the strike ended on December 24 and a contract between the company and union was signed on January 9 of the following year.[187]
Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965
Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches

In December 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, where the SNCC had been working on voter registration for several months.[188] A local judge issued an injunction that barred any gathering of three or more people affiliated with the SNCC, SCLC, DCVL, or any of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil rights activity until King defied it by speaking at Brown Chapel on January 2, 1965.[189] During the 1965 march to Montgomery, Alabama, violence by state police and others against the peaceful marchers resulted in much publicity, which made racism in Alabama visible nationwide.

Acting on James Bevel's call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, Bevel and other SCLC members, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, at which King was not present, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has become known as Bloody Sunday and was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the civil rights movement. It was the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King and Bevel's nonviolence strategy.[53]

On March 5, King met with officials in the Johnson Administration to request an injunction against any prosecution of the demonstrators. He did not attend the march due to church duties, but he later wrote, "If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did, I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line."[190] Footage of police brutality against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.[191]

King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against the State of Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, King led marchers on March 9 to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, then held a short prayer session before turning the marchers around and asking them to disperse so as not to violate the court order. The unexpected ending of this second march aroused the surprise and anger of many within the local movement.[192] Meanwhile, on March 11 King cried at the news of Johnson supporting a voting rights bill on television in Marie Foster's living room.[193] The march finally went ahead fully on March 25, 1965.[194][195] At the conclusion of the march on the steps of the state capitol, King delivered a speech that became known as "How Long, Not Long". In it, King stated that equal rights for African Americans could not be far away, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and "you shall reap what you sow"....United States

King has become a national icon in the history of American liberalism and American progressivism.[322] His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the U.S. Just days after King's assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.[323] Title VIII of the Act, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibited discrimination in housing and housing-related transactions on the basis of race, religion, or national origin (later expanded to include sex, familial status, and disability). This legislation was seen as a tribute to King's struggle in his final years to combat residential discrimination in the U.S.[323] The day following King's assassination, school teacher Jane Elliott conducted her first "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise with her class of elementary school students in Riceville, Iowa. Her purpose was to help them understand King's death as it related to racism, something they little understood as they lived in a predominantly white community.[324]

King's wife Coretta Scott King followed in her husband's footsteps and was active in matters of social justice and civil rights until her death in 2006. The same year that Martin Luther King was assassinated, she established the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to preserving his legacy and the work of championing nonviolent conflict resolution and tolerance worldwide.[325] Their son, Dexter King, serves as the center's chairman.[326][327] Daughter Yolanda King, who died in 2007, was a motivational speaker, author and founder of Higher Ground Productions, an organization specializing in diversity training.[328]

Even within the King family, members disagree about his religious and political views about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. King's widow Coretta publicly said that she believed her husband would have supported gay rights.[329] However, his youngest child, Bernice King, has said publicly that he would have been opposed to gay marriage.[330]

On February 4, 1968, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, in speaking about how he wished to be remembered after his death, King stated:

    I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody.

    I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

    Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.[274][331]

Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Main article: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Beginning in 1971, cities such as St. Louis, Missouri, and states established annual holidays to honor King.[332] On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Following President George H. W. Bush's 1992 proclamation, the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near the time of King's birthday.[333][334] On January 17, 2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states.[335] Arizona (1992), New Hampshire (1999) and Utah (2000) were the last three states to recognize the holiday. Utah previously celebrated the holiday at the same time but under the name Human Rights Day." (wikipedia.)

"Martin Fitzgerald Lawrence[1] (born April 16, 1965) is an American actor and comedian. He came to fame during the 1990s, establishing a Hollywood career as a leading actor. He got his start playing Maurice Warfield in What's Happening Now!! (1987–1988). He was a leading actor in the Fox television sitcom Martin, the Bad Boys franchise, and House Party, Boomerang, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Nothing to Lose, Life, Blue Streak, Big Momma's House, Black Knight, Open Season, and Wild Hogs.
Early life

The fourth of six children, Martin Fitzgerald Lawrence was born on April 16, 1965, in Frankfurt, West Germany. His father, John Lawrence, was serving in the U.S. military at the time of his birth.[1] Lawrence's first and middle names were named after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. President John F. Kennedy, respectively.[1] When Lawrence was seven, his father left the military, and the family moved from West Germany back to the United States, settling in the Washington D.C. area in the town of Landover, Maryland. Lawrence mother had moved her and her six children into the troubled King Square housing projects where he would attend Dodge Park Elementary.[1] Following his parents' divorce when he was eight years old, Lawrence rarely saw his father, who was a police officer, serving as the Police Chief for the Franklin D. Roosevelt VA Medical Center in Montrose, New York.[2] His mother, Chlora (née Bailey), worked several jobs, including as a sales representative and cashier at various department stores to support her family.[3][4] Small for his size growing up in the projects, Lawrence often engaged in street fights with other kids. He stated that it was his mother and older brothers that kept him out of jail where most of his childhood friend ended up. During his teen years, Lawrence excelled at boxing.[1] While living in Fort Washington, Maryland, Lawrence attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School[1] and Friendly High School, and became a Mid-Atlantic Golden Gloves boxing contender.[5]
Career
[icon]   
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2023)

In his early days, Lawrence did comedy shows in the Washington, D.C., area and supported himself through odd jobs. Comedian Ritch Snyder saw his act and suggested Lawrence make connections in New York.[6] Lawrence ended up moving to New York City and found his way to the comedy club The Improv. Shortly after appearing at The Improv, Lawrence won a performance spot on Star Search.[1] He did well on the show and made it to the final round, but did not win. However, executives at Columbia Pictures Television saw Martin's performance and offered him the role of Maurice Warfield in What's Happening Now!!; this was his first acting job.[1] Upon cancellation of that show, Lawrence found bit parts in various films and television series. His breakthrough role was as Cee in Do the Right Thing. Other film roles followed, such as House Party, House Party 2, Talkin' Dirty After Dark, and the Eddie Murphy vehicle Boomerang. During this period, entertainment mogul Russell Simmons selected him to host the groundbreaking series Def Comedy Jam on HBO. Def Comedy Jam gave many comedians (including Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle, Mike Epps, Bernie Mac and Cedric the Entertainer) mainstream exposure.

During his stint with Def Comedy Jam, Lawrence appeared in his own hit series, Martin, which aired on Fox.[1] The show ran from 1992 to 1997 and was an enormous success. Martin was the flagship of Fox's Thursday night line-up, which drew millions of viewers away from NBC's "Must See TV" line-up. He hosted Saturday Night Live on February 19, 1994, where he made crude remarks about women's genitalia and personal hygiene; the offensive portion of the monologue was edited out of NBC reruns and syndicated versions and Lawrence was banned from NBC for a period of time until he received an apology from the President of NBC at the time Warren Littlefield.[7] Martin's ratings continued to skyrocket so much that Fox became more of a contender against NBC and came closer to being considered among the top television networks. In 1995 he acted alongside Will Smith in Bad Boys with wide success.

After Martin ended its run in 1997, Lawrence found work in comedy films. He often starred as the second lead opposite actors including Eddie Murphy, Danny DeVito, and Tim Robbins.[1] Many of his films were blockbusters at the box office, including Nothing to Lose, Life, Blue Streak, Big Momma's House, and Bad Boys II. He also starred in critical and box office failures, including Black Knight and National Security. Regardless, his salary steadily increased to over $10 million per film role. He continued to work in film, with such films as Big Momma's House 2, which opened at No. 1 at North American box office and grossed almost $28 million its first weekend,[8] and Wild Hogs (2007), in which he played a bored suburbanite seeking adventure on the open road in a biker comedy alongside John Travolta, Tim Allen and William H. Macy.

In 2006, Lawrence appeared on Inside the Actors Studio, during which Lawrence briefly brought back to life some of the characters he had portrayed on Martin. He also appeared in Open Season as the voice of Boog, one of the main characters of the film, which also starred Ashton Kutcher, Debra Messing, and Gary Sinise.

In 2008, Lawrence starred in his first G-rated film, Walt Disney Pictures' College Road Trip, in which he co-starred with Raven-Symoné.

In 2011, Lawrence reprised his role as FBI agent Malcolm Turner in Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, the third film in the Big Momma series.[9]

In January 2013, it was announced that Lawrence and Kelsey Grammer were considering pairing up to star in a comedy for Lionsgate Television. Partners, paired the two actors as Chicago lawyers from "vastly different backgrounds who unexpectedly meet in court on the worst day of their lives." The show premiered on August 4, 2014, but was cancelled after one season after receiving poor reviews.[10]

In 2020, Lawrence reprised his role as Detective Marcus Burnett in the third installment of the Bad Boys franchise, Bad Boys for Life, again alongside Will Smith. The film was considered a financial success, grossing $112 million in its first four days of release.[11]

Lawrence starred in his first dramatic role in 2022's Mindcage alongside Melissa Roxburgh and John Malkovich.

On April 20, 2023, Lawrence earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame....Filmography
Film
Year     Title     Role     Notes
1989     Do the Right Thing     Cee    
1990     House Party     Bilal
1991     Talkin' Dirty After Dark     Terry Wilson    
House Party 2     Bilal
1992     Boomerang     Tyler Hawkins    
1994     You So Crazy     Martin     Stand-up film
Executive producer and writer
1995     Bad Boys     Detective Marcus Burnett     Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (with Will Smith)
Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Action Sequence
1996     A Thin Line Between Love and Hate     Darnell Wright     Also director
Narrator, executive producer, writer and music supervisor
1997     Nothing to Lose     Terrence "T-Paul" Paul Davidson    
1999     Life     Claude Banks     Nominated - Blockbuster Entertainment Awards for Favorite Comedy Team (with Eddie Murphy)
Nominated - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Motion Picture
Blue Streak     Miles Logan/Detective Malone    
2000     Big Momma's House     Malcolm Turner/Big Momma     Also executive producer
Nominated - Blockbuster Entertainment Awards for Favorite Actor - Comedy
Nominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Wipeout
Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance
Nominated - Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Movie Actor
2001     What's the Worst That Could Happen?     Kevin Caffrey     Also executive producer
Black Knight     Jamal Walker/Skywalker     Also executive producer
2002     Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat     Martin     Stand-up film
Also executive producer and writer
2003     National Security     Earl Montgomery     Also executive producer
Bad Boys II     Detective Marcus Burnett     Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Will Smith)
2005     Rebound     Coach Roy McCormick/
Preachor Don     Also executive producer
2006     Big Momma's House 2     Malcolm Turner/Big Momma     Also executive producer
Open Season     Boog     Voice only
2007     Wild Hogs     Bobby Davis    
2008     Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins     RJ Stevens/Roscoe Jenkins, Jr.    
College Road Trip     Chief James Porter    
Tropic Thunder     The Dude     Cameo
2010     Death at a Funeral     Ryan Barnes    
2011     Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son     Malcolm Turner/Big Momma    
2016     Martin Lawrence: Doin' Time     Martin     Stand-up film
Also writer
2019     The Beach Bum     Captain Wack    
2020     Bad Boys for Life     Detective Marcus Burnett    
2022     Mindcage     Jake Doyle    
2024     Untitled fourth Bad Boys film     Detective Marcus Burnett    
Television
Year     Title     Role     Notes
1987–1988     What's Happening Now!!     Maurice Warfield     22 episodes
1989     A Little Bit Strange     Sydney Masterson     Unsold pilot
1990     Kid 'n Play     Wiz, Hurbie     Voice
1990     Hammer, Slammer, & Slade     Willie     Television film
1991     Private Times     Mike     Unaired pilot
1992–1993     Def Comedy Jam     Himself (host)    
1992-1997     Martin     Martin Payne and other various characters     132 episodes
1994     Saturday Night Live     Himself (host)     Episode: "Martin Lawrence/Crash Test Dummies"
2010–2011     Love That Girl!         Executive producer
2012     Untitled Martin Lawrence / CBS Sitcom     Ray Barker     Unsold pilot
2014     The Soul Man     Crazy Rudy     Episode: "All the Way Live"
2014     Partners     Marcus Jackson     10 episodes
Discography
Years     Album     Chart positions
US     US Hip-Hop
1993     Martin Lawrence Live Talkin' Shit     76     10
1995     Funk It     –     35
Awards and nominations

    Blockbuster Entertainment Award
        nominated with Eddie Murphy for Favorite Comedy Team (2000) for the film Life
        nominated for Favorite Actor (2001) for the film Big Momma's House
    NAACP Image Award
        won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (1995) for the series Martin
        won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (1996) for the series Martin
        nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (1997) for the series Martin
    Kids' Choice Award
        nominated for Favorite Television Actor (1995) for the series Martin
        nominated for Favorite Television Actor (1996) for the series Martin
        nominated for Favorite Movie Actor (2001) for the film Big Momma's House
    MTV Movie Award
        nominated with Will Smith for Best On-Screen Duo (1996) for the film Bad Boys
        nominated for the film Big Momma's House
        nominated with Will Smith for Best On-Screen Team (2003) for the film Bad Boys II
    ShoWest – Male Star of Tomorrow (1995)
    Teen Choice Award – nominated for Wipeout Scene of the Summer (2000) for the film Big Momma's House
    BET Comedy Award – won Icon Comedy Award (2005)" (wikipedia.)

"Martin is an American television sitcom that aired for five seasons on Fox from August 27, 1992, to May 1, 1997. The show starred comedian and namesake Martin Lawrence as the titular character. Lawrence also played several other characters. Martin was one of Fox's highest-rated shows during the sitcom's run. Martin has frequently been regarded as one of the most influential and "pivotal", sitcoms of all time.

Broadcast history
Season     Time
1992–93 (season 1)     Thursday at 8:30–9:00 pm
1993–94 (season 2)     Sunday at 8:00–8:30 pm
1994–95 (season 3)     Thursday at 8:00–8:30 pm
1995–96 (season 4)     Saturday at 8:00–8:30 pm (September 9, 1995 – October 28, 1995)
Sunday at 8:30–9:00 pm (November 5, 1995 – February 4, 1996; February 18 – 25, 1996)
Thursday at 8:30–9:00 pm (February 8 – 15, 1996; February 29 – May 2, 1996)
1996–97 (season 5)     Thursday at 8:00–8:30 pm
Episodes
Main article: List of Martin episodes
Season    Episodes    Originally aired    Rank    Average viewers
(in millions)
First aired    Last aired
1    27    August 27, 1992    May 13, 1993    #41    11.40
2    27    August 22, 1993    May 15, 1994    #64    9.29
3    27    September 1, 1994    May 18, 1995    #92    8.11
4    27    September 9, 1995    May 2, 1996    #104    6.70
5    24    September 5, 1996    May 1, 1997    #110    6.00
Premise

Martin Lawrence plays the role of Martin Payne, a disc jockey who lives with his girlfriend Gina Waters (Tisha Campbell) in the city of Detroit, Michigan. Martin works for the fictional radio station WZUP and later, for local Public-access television station Channel 51, and the show covers events in their lives.

A common theme of the series is Martin's selfish and free-spirited nature. Martin's sharp tongue and lack of filter often lead to comedic situations and conflicts with those around him, making for an entertaining viewing experience.[1]

In early episodes, Lawrence began with a monologue of him speaking directly to the camera and audience from the darkened radio studio. The only actor to appear in every episode as the same character is Thomas Mikal Ford as Tommy.

As the series progressed, plot lines saw Martin eventually move on to become the host of the talk show Word on the Street, which aired on the small Detroit public-access television station Channel 51. He retained this position until the series' final episode, in which he and Gina prepare to move to Los Angeles. Gina's best friend Pam, whom Mr. Whitaker let go two episodes earlier due to downsizing, goes on to pursue a career in the music industry as an artists & repertoire (A&R) executive at Keep It Real Records. This plot line became the subject of a backdoor pilot episode Goin' for Mine (episode 129), that was included in the Martin series for a spin-off sitcom of the same name, starring Tichina Arnold, but the sitcom never materialized.

Main characters

Martin Payne (Martin Lawrence) Martin, the title character, is a caring family man deep down, but on the outside a very macho, selfish smart aleck. Martin carries himself in a typical urban youth manner, with modern expressions and mannerisms. His girlfriend turned wife, Gina Waters, has sometimes tried to change him (much to his anger, seeing as he likes the way he acts), but this rarely worked. Martin is not much of a physical fighter despite trying to come off as such. He has a particularly antagonistic relationship with Gina's best friend Pam.

Gina Waters-Payne (Tisha Campbell), Martin's professional, fun-loving, eternally romantic and forgiving girlfriend and later wife. She often acts as a peacemaker, admonishing others when they trade barbs and insults and breaking up fights. Gina works for a public-relations firm. She complements Martin's street savvy by serving as a voice of reason. She is also Pam's best friend.[2][3]

Cole Brown (Carl Anthony Payne II), Martin's other best friend. Dimwitted but well-meaning and known for his eclectic taste in headgear, Cole proudly cleans jets at the airport for a living, drives an AMC Pacer, and lives with his mother Maddie until early Season Five. For a time in Season 3, Cole appeared to be attracted strictly to plus-sized women and dated a security guard named Big Shirley (who is fully seen in only one episode; another episode only showed "her" below the neck to portray her as being much taller and bigger than Cole). In the final season, after Cole meets Shanise and moves into his own apartment in a rough neighborhood, he dates Shanise, who appears to be even more dimwitted than he is. During the series finale, he becomes engaged to Shanise.

Thomas "Tommy" Strawn (Thomas Mikal Ford), one of Martin's best friends. Level-headed, intelligent, and charming, Tommy serves as another voice of reason, especially during Martin's schemes. He would often portray himself as a ladies' man and would flirt with Pam and other women on the show. He had a romantic relationship with Pam during the third and fourth seasons. His mysterious employment status was a running gag on the show, with everyone saying, "You ain't got no job!". Of all the male characters, he is the only one to have attended college. He is also the only character to appear physically in every episode.

Pamela "Pam" James (Tichina Arnold), Gina's sassy and ill-tempered co-worker, best friend and Tommy's girlfriend. Before eventually dating Tommy, Pam was always looking for a good man. In Season 1, Cole expressed interest in her, but she doesn't return the interest. Pam worked at the PR firm where she was employed as Gina's assistant. Pam has a very adversarial relationship with Martin. When he insults her, she responds typically via belittling that brings attention to Martin's short stature. Pam has a beautiful singing voice that she displays throughout the show.

Shawn McDermott (Jon Gries) (seasons 1–2), the scatterbrained radio station engineer at WZUP. Martin always finds himself having rather strange conversations with him. Shawn often does things that upset their boss Stan, and once even tried to secure a record deal from Snoop Dogg when he was at an engagement party for Martin & Gina. It is revealed in the Season 2 Finale (Shawn's final appearance) that when Stan sold WZUP he was retained by the new station as an engineer, explaining to Martin that WEHA fired all the former WZUP DJs in favor of automated machines and that all he does is go into the station every 8 hours to switch out the radio tapes in the machines. This episode displayed a wiser, more serious side of Shawn as he gives Martin some advice on life that actually made sense, telling Martin to "find out where he needs to be." Martin takes this advice to heart and embarks on a journey of self-discovery that ultimately leads to his talk show gig. After this episode, Shawn is never seen or mentioned again, with the exception of the Season 4 clip show "The Best of Martin" in which he appears via archive footage.

Stan Winters (Garrett Morris) (seasons 1–2; guest season 3), Martin and Shawn's boss, the owner and founder of radio station WZUP. He perpetually used too much cologne and wore woefully outdated clothing from the 1970s. Martin knew Stan to be cheap and quite untrustworthy, and just when Martin didn't think Stan could sink any lower with his schemes, Stan was always able to surprise him. Furthermore, Garrett Morris' real-life shooting resulted in his unexpected absence in the episode and a major change in the storyline, regarding Martin's career. Therefore, Stan was absent in the episode "The Hoedown in Motown" when he must shell out $20,000 in unpaid taxes, precipitating his sale of the radio station. He returned for one episode in Season 3 to form a partnership with Martin, and together they opened a restaurant—Marty Mart's Meatloaf and Waffles. Needless to say, their joint venture was a failure. After this episode, Stan was never seen or mentioned again. Garrett Morris had filmed a scene on his actual hospital bed when he gave Martin and Shawn a videotaped message, and called in from the hospital to tell Martin he sold WZUP to settle with the IRS.
Supporting characters

Bruh-Man (Brother Man) (Reginald Ballard) (seasons 2–4): Martin's neighbor, who debuts in season two. He lives on the fifth "flo" (yet he always puts four fingers up when relating this fact), directly upstairs from Martin. Whenever Martin asks what he is doing, Bruh-Man replies, "Nuttin'…just chillin'." He often climbs down the "f-a-a-a-ah 'scape" (fire escape), to enter Martin's apartment, taking food, borrowing assorted items, and generally lounging around as if he lives there. At first, this greatly annoyed Martin but he eventually got used to it. In fact, fire escapes seem to be his only means of movement throughout buildings—he is seldom seen entering or exiting the apartment through the front door. When he attended Martin and Gina's engagement party at Gina's apartment, he went as far as climbing the building since there was no fire escape. Bruh-Man always wears badly fitting clothing a size or two too small (frequently, items he's "borrowed" from Martin), and has a characteristic gait consisting of a slow and lazy, rather limping, plodding walk, with his head cocked to one side. Martin, as Bruh-Man was heading toward the window to make his exit, once referred to it as his "slow bop". Bruh-Man speaks in a deep voice and with a long drawl, like that of Shaquille O'Neal. Despite being a popular character, Bruh-Man was quietly phased out of the series after season three. His last appearances were in the fourth season, and he explains his absence by stating that he only comes around when Martin and Gina are away out of respect for their marriage. This is proven true as he is absent throughout the fifth and final season of the series, however he is mentioned once albeit briefly. In episode 13, "Ain't That About a Ditch", when Gina's mother locks Martin out of his apartment, he pauses to think, then whispers "Bruh-Man" to himself as he walks off to climb in through the fire escape, then Martin shows up in his apartment.

Hustle Man (Tracy Morgan) (seasons 3–5): The neighborhood purveyor of questionable products and services "at a discount rate! I don't do dat for err'body! I'm just tryna help YOU out!" He always greets Martin with his trademark "What's happenin', chief?" In one episode, one of Hustle Man's more outrageous items for sale was an 'appetizing' array of roasted pigeons impaled on a tree branch (as if barbecued on it), which he attempted to sell to Martin and his friends while they were snowed in and starving. In another episode he served as Martin's cut-rate "wedding planner", armed with a shopping cart brimming with plastic flowers, chitlin loaf, and a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor—Martin's retaliation for Gina's choice of a more elegant and ridiculously overpriced wedding planner.

Ms. Geri (Jeri Gray): She was a tough, trigger-happy senior who, regardless of her age and diminutive size, has no qualms about "whooping' ass". Most of her assaults are committed on Martin in everyday situations, such as standing in line at the DMV or at the unemployment office. On one occasion, her opponent was Dragonfly Jones (Lawrence), whom she soundly defeated as well, taking his money for good measure.

Shanise McGillicuddy (Maura McDade) (season 5) is Cole's girlfriend (and later fiancée), during the fifth and final season. Shanise is a very friendly woman. She always has a positive attitude. However, she is even more dimwitted than Cole. She and Cole briefly break up in one episode, but this occurs because when she told Cole she needed more space, he assumed she meant she wanted to break up, but she actually wanted a bigger apartment. She is also thoughtful and willing to help others. In the episode Over the Hoochie's Nest, she assists Martin, Tommy and Cole in rescuing Pam from an insane asylum. In the series finale, Cole wanted to ask Shanise to marry him. He had a hard time asking her due to him losing the ring. Shanise was even taken to get X-rayed in order for Cole to find the ring after he stuck it in a cupcake. Finally, they become engaged when she is tricked into reading a letter that says, "Will you marry me?" and Cole says yes to her. At the end of the episode, she is last seen helping the Paynes move out of their apartment as well as saying farewell to them. The character started minor but developed a grounded position in the group after Tisha Campbell briefly left the show.

Nipsey (Sean Lampkin) (seasons 3–5), the rotund, good-natured bartender who owns Nipsey's Lounge, the gang's favorite hangout.
Recurring characters

Nadine Waters (Judyann Elder): Gina's doting and somewhat over-protective mother, who comes on as sophisticated, sweet and mild-mannered on the surface, but has shown a lustful side on occasion—such as once getting immediately turned on by a brief scene from a porn video, and generally becoming quite flustered whenever conversation or situations turned to sexual subjects.

Dr. Cliff Waters (J.A. Preston): Gina's overbearing and overprotective father who works as a chiropractor. Instantly disliked Martin because he didn't feel he was good enough for his daughter. During the wedding rehearsal dinner, he threatens to start "capping" people, instantly inciting a major fight with members of the Payne family.

Lil' Dawg (Adrian Tibbs): A tall, lanky barber at Jim's Barber Shop whose unorthodox personal style is the subject of much ribbing in the workplace—he keeps his head nearly shaved, but grows a long mane of hair in back, and wears Coke-bottle-thick glasses. He is often seen at Nipsey's trolling for women (successfully!), and despite his looks and demeanor always seems to come out on top whenever he and Martin have a disagreement.

Buckwhite (Ray Massara): A very easygoing, tall white boy with a huge dark-colored Afro, Buckwhite has been seen hanging out at Jim's Barber Shop, at Martin's apartment for various sporting events on TV, and at Nipsey's Lounge. He speaks Ebonics in an unaffected "normal" white manner. (Massara is actually a property master and special-effects assistant in the film and television industry; at the time of his appearances on Martin, he was that production's property master.)

Bro Fo' Real (Brother For Real) (Charlie Murphy): A faithful audience member of Martin's "Word on the Street" television program, and quite possibly Martin's number one fan. Bro Fo' Real attends every of Martin's taping for his show and encouraged Martin to be himself during one of the show's tapings (Season 3, Episode 14).

Angry Man (David Jean Thomas): A fellow audience member of Martin's "Word on the Street" television program, and often can be found in other locations such as the DMV. He is prone to stand up and shout "Man.... SIT-CHO ASS DOWN!!" when a guest (or anyone else, for that matter) says something he disagrees with.

Mr. and Mrs. Booker (Jeris Lee Poindexter and Ellia English): A married couple and audience members of Martin's "Word on the Street" television program. The Bookers are constantly arguing. Mr. Booker appears to be somewhat goofy and dimwitted, while Mrs. Booker is loud and aggressive. Their most prominent appearance is in the Season 4 episode "Kicked to the Curb", where they assist Martin and Gina in getting their apartment back, by scaring off the new tenants after Mrs. Booker pretends to be a scorned wife looking to fight the woman who was "creeping with her husband".

Maddie Brown (Laura Hayes): Cole's gossiping, no-nonsense mother who still supports him. She's known for talking about other people and spreading their business around. For example, Martin being broke and having Gina support him.

Evelyn Porter (LaWanda Page): A senior resident who lives in Martin's apartment building who is also friends with Mama Payne and Cole's mother, Maddie.

Reverend Leon Lonnie Love (David Alan Grier): A local fire-and-brimstone preacher whose brand of religion doesn't seem to frown upon avarice, lying, cheating, stealing, and philandering—even with his own cousin Pam.

Marian (Roxanne Reese): A seemingly well-heeled, middle-aged neighborhood alcoholic who often appears at parties, nightclubs, and gatherings, such as the audience on Martin's show Word on the Street and The Ladies League of Detroit. However, in one episode, she reveals that she is not drunk, that she is instead on medication.

Kenji (Kenneth Whack): Dragonfly's student.

Laquita (Simbi Khali): The nail stylist at Sheneneh's Sho' Nuff Hair Salon and Sheneneh's even-more vocal best friend.

Keylolo (Yo-Yo): A hairstylist at Sheenah's Sho' Nuff Hair Salon. She is also Sheneneh's sidekick.

Bonquisha (Kim Coles): Another one of Sheneneh's friends who always has bad breath. Bonquisha routinely claims that Keylolo is the one that has bad breath stating that was "eaten chitlins".

Sonny (Reno Wilson): Martin's shoplifting cousin who dresses and acts like Eddie Murphy.

Varnell Hill (Tommy Davidson): A successful talk show host who had been a WZUP DJ, leaving WZUP for greener pastures shortly after Martin began work there. When Martin was scheduled to open a community center, Stan bumped him in favor of Varnell being in town, setting events in motion for Martin. Varnell invited Martin to be on his show if he is ever in Hollywood, but when Martin shows up, he is ignored, causing Martin to see that success means nothing without integrity. Tommy Davidson reprised his role as Varnell Hill in 2020 as a guest on Martin Lawrence's cooking webshow, complete with a canary yellow suit.

Luis (Luis Antonio Ramos): The superintendent of the apartment building where Martin lives. In one episode, he marries Pam to avoid deportation.

Titus (Bentley Kyle Evans): A handsome well-dressed guy who is Gina's hairdresser, and seems to be attracted to Martin—affectionately calling him "Almond". (Evans was the executive producer of Martin; he made several cameo and voice-only appearances throughout the series, including one of the callers on WZUP, a guest at one of Gina's parties, and the only guy who appeared at an all-male fashion show that Pam and Tommy sponsored.)

Myra (BeBe Drake-Massey): Stan's girlfriend; they once double-dated with Martin and Gina (while Martin was on the outs with Cole, Pam and Tommy). She was a customer of Sheneneh's hair salon, and went bald after Gina treated her hair. She was last seen in season 3 working as a clerk at the unemployment office. After Martin leaves several low-paying jobs due to feeling he is making slow progress, Myra is fed up with him, but gets him a job after realizing he learned his lesson - buffing floors.

Gloria Rodriguez (Angelina Estrada): Station director and Martin's supervisor at television station Channel 51. Martin's work at Station 51 is more efficient than it was at WZUP, arguably because Mrs. Rodriguez is more professional in her duties than was Stan.

Bernice (Kymberly Newberry): A producer at Channel 51 who is always at odds with Martin. (Kymberly Newberry also briefly played an entirely different part of a shoe-saleswoman in episode 8 of season 2 "You've Got a Friend".)
Other roles played by Lawrence

One of the trademark running gags of Martin, especially early in its run, was Lawrence playing multiple characters, utilizing various costumes and prosthetic appliances. This was often done as a plot device or comic relief. Season four was the last season to feature Lawrence as multiple characters on a regular basis. This technique was rarely used in Season 5, which was the final season of the series. The only characters that appeared in Season 5 were Sheneneh, Roscoe and Elroy. Mama Payne does not appear, but her voice is heard in the holiday episode "Scrooge". Most of the other characters were last seen in Season 4 and the episodes they last appeared in seemingly wrote them out of the series.

Sheneneh Jenkins: Played by Martin, she is an exaggerated parody of a stereotypical "ghetto girl": she always has on flashy clothes/fashion accessories and hair weaves; nature has endowed her with a disproportionately oversized ghetto booty; and she speaks in African American Vernacular English. Sheneneh is the owner/operator of Sheneneh's Sho' Nuff Hair Salon. Mama Payne and Sheneneh were the only two characters Lawrence played as women on the show, and both characters hated Gina. Full of quirks, Sheneneh is tall and thick in build and often describes herself as a "la-a-a-dy". Some of her other catchphrases are "Oh mah goodnehhh!" and "Aw-iight?" at every other word, and "Oh, no you didn't." Sheneneh's portrayed as being a very feisty, belligerent, touchy, antagonistic, confrontational and disparaging diva, known for her ghetto fabulous scoldings. She lives in the apartment across the hallway from Martin's and factors into many of the plots by picking fights with Gina and especially Pam out in the hallway. Sheneneh has several girlfriends who occasionally appeared in the program, those being Keylolo (Yo-Yo), Bonquisha (Kim Coles), and Laquita (Simbi Khali). Of all the secondary characters played by Lawrence, Sheneneh is the only one to make an appearance in the final episode, though only her voice was heard. The nae nae dance, created in 2013, was inspired by the way Sheneneh danced in Martin, and was named after the character.

Edna (Mama) Payne: Martin's extremely frenetic, and easily excited mother, who is extremely over-protective of Martin, and who dislikes Gina immensely. Comically, Lawrence's mustache was never covered with stage make-up while in this role. Mama's mustache was occasionally the subject of a sharp retort by Gina when she and Martin argued. She has a brother named Junior (portrayed by John Witherspoon). Mama does not appear in the fifth and final season, but her voice is heard in the Christmas episode "Scrooge". She has the same catchphrase as her son Martin, "Damn! Damn! Daaaaamn!", a reference to the show Good Times.[4]

Ol' Otis: A very abrasive, strict, stuttering and potbellied old man, who is always seen in uniform while on his job as a security guard. His catchphrase is repeatedly referring to males as "ba" [boy] and females as "ga" [girl]. Otis is usually seen melodramatically and hyperactively attempting to keep order whether there's trouble or not. Because of his immense gut, advanced age, and oafish appearance, Otis is often taken for a weak old man who just acts tough. Because of this, he's often challenged to physical fights following his abrasive behavior. Otis is always more than willing to oblige others in engaging in combat. Surprisingly through his buffoonish-styled wrestling, unexpected strength from Otis always catches his "antagonists" off guard, invariably making him the victor in the end. Otis's pet peeve is misconduct in the "younger generations". When all is said and done, he physically defeats all his much younger challengers with ease. In his final episode on the show, he moves to an undisclosed island. Otis does not appear in the fifth and final season.

Jerome: A loudmouthed, aging, somehow well-funded, once-flashy but now-faded Detroit pimp. He runs an illicit casino, sports a family-heirloom gold tooth ("gold toof-es") in his mouth, was once voted Detroit's "Player of the Year", and has his sights set on Pam, as when he occasionally calls her "Junk in the Trunk". He often speaks in rhyming sentences. Jerome is shown to be very intelligent, as when cashiers at a convenient store were talking about him in their native language, he reveals his fluency to them shocking. Usually, Jerome appears on the scene with his signature spiel, "Oooh, oooh, oo-oo-ooh, I say Jerome's in the house, I say Jerome's in the ah-um-ah-um... house! watch yo' mouth!" Jerome's final appearance on the show is in the episode "Uptown Friday Night" (which parodies Uptown Saturday Night), in which his final line is "And that's the eeeend!" Jerome does not appear in the fifth and final season.

Roscoe: An antagonistic child with a perpetually runny nose and a very smart mouth, who can be considered Gina's arch-enemy (similar to Martin and Pam's rivalry). Lawrence played the role by "standing" on his knees, with shoes attached to his kneecaps. Roscoe only appears once during the first, fifth and final season.

Dragonfly Jones: A martial arts "expert" who is beaten up in nearly every appearance. He always seems to owe money to a real martial artist named Kenji, who is actually a student of Dragonfly. Kenji who would often beat up Dragonfly whenever he refuses to pay him some small sum he is owed. Dragonfly does not appear in the fifth and final season.

Bob: A white man who works in an unknown capacity at the marketing firm where Gina is employed, Bob is best described as a stereotypical surfer-dude-cum-redneck. He speaks in a Southern Californian accent mixed with a Southern twang, and often uses words like "dude" and "man", even in professional settings. Lawrence achieved a white appearance with stage make-up and a prosthetic nose appliance to make him appear Caucasian, as well as wearing a long, blond mullet wig to complete the look. Bob only appears in 2 episodes, once in the first season and again in the second season.

Elroy Preston: The fictional "Godfather of Black Surf Music" who is now completely forgotten and washed up. Preston works as an auto mechanic, and is best known for randomly breaking into song while performing his mechanical duties. He often distracts himself and irritates others when reminiscing on things that involve his trademark song, which consists only of Preston singing "Don't you know no good!" over and over. He makes one appearance in the fifth and final season.

King Beef: Cole's favorite 1970s blaxploitation movie actor, who is actually Lawrence in a huge bodysuit. Whenever trouble arises, he feels the overwhelming need to dance. It does not matter if he is on the run from Godzilla—he always finds time for dancing, and always with his scantily clad female co-stars flanking him. He is only seen during the first season.

CGI Martin: A fictional CGI animated version of Martin Payne, who is only seen in the fourth and fifth season intro and bumpers.

Awards and nominations
Year     Award     Result     Category     Recipient
1993     People's Choice Awards     Won     Favorite TV New Comedy Series    
1994     NAACP Image Awards     Won     Outstanding Comedy Series    
1995     Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series     Martin Lawrence
Outstanding Comedy Series    
1996     Nominated     Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series     Marla Gibbs
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series     Carl Anthony Payne II
Thomas Mikal Ford
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series     Tisha Campbell-Martin
Outstanding Comedy Series    
Won     Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series     Tichina Arnold
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series     Martin Lawrence
1997     Nominated     Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series     Tisha Campbell-Martin
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series     Martin Lawrence
Outstanding Comedy Series    
1995     Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards     Nominated     Favorite Television Show    
Favorite Television Actor     Martin Lawrence
1996     Favorite Television Actor     Martin Lawrence
Syndication

Martin went into second run syndication on August 8, 1995 through Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution; it airs multiple times a week on the networks of Paramount Global, including MTV2, VH1 and BET, with Max also carrying the full run of the series.
Home media

Besides being purchasable on most digital video retailers, HBO Home Video released all five seasons of Martin on DVD in Region 1.
DVD Name     Ep #     Release Date
The Complete First Season     27     January 4, 2007
The Complete Second Season     27     May 15, 2007
The Complete Third Season     27     November 6, 2007
The Complete Fourth Season     27     April 1, 2008
The Complete Fifth and Final Season     24     October 7, 2008
The Complete Series     132     February 4, 2020" (wikipedia.)

"A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt, or tee for short) is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a crew neck, which lacks a collar. T-shirts are generally made of stretchy, light, and inexpensive fabric and are easy to clean. The T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century and, in the mid-20th century, transitioned from undergarments to general-use casual clothing.

They are typically made of cotton textile in a stockinette or jersey knit, which has a distinctively pliable texture compared to shirts made of woven cloth. Some modern versions have a body made from a continuously knitted tube, produced on a circular knitting machine, such that the torso has no side seams. The manufacture of T-shirts has become highly automated and may include cutting fabric with a laser or a water jet.

T-shirts are inexpensive to produce and are often part of fast fashion, leading to outsized sales of T-shirts compared to other attire.[1] For example, two billion T-shirts are sold per year in the United States,[2] and the average person in Sweden buys nine T-shirts a year.[3] Production processes vary but can be environmentally intensive and include the environmental impact caused by their materials, such as cotton, which uses a lot of water and pesticides.[4][5][6]
History

Simple, T-shaped top garments have been a part of human clothing since ancient times; garments similar to the T-shirt worn earlier in history are generally called tunics.

The modern T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century. First, the one-piece union suit underwear was cut into separate top and bottom garments, with the top long enough to tuck under the waistband of the bottoms. With and without buttons, they were adopted by miners and stevedores during the late 19th century as a convenient covering for hot environments.

In 1913, the U.S. Navy first issued them as undergarments.[7] These were a crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt to be worn under a uniform. It became common for sailors and Marines in work parties, the early submarines, and tropical climates to remove their uniform jacket, thus wearing (and soiling) only the undershirt.[8] They soon became popular as a bottom layer of clothing for workers in various industries, including agriculture. The T-shirt was easily fitted, easily cleaned, and inexpensive; for these reasons, it became the shirt of choice for young boys. Boys' shirts were made in various colors and patterns. The word T-shirt became part of American English by the 1920s, and appeared in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

By the Great Depression, the T-shirt was often the default garment to be worn when doing farm or ranch chores, as well as other times when modesty called for a torso covering but conditions called for lightweight fabrics.[8] Following World War II, it was worn by Navy men as undergarments and slowly became common to see veterans wearing their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing. The shirts became even more popular in the 1950s after Marlon Brando wore one in A Streetcar Named Desire, finally achieving status as fashionable, stand-alone, outerwear garments.[9] Often boys wore them while doing chores and playing outside, eventually opening up the idea of wearing them as general-purpose casual clothing.

Printed T-shirts were in limited use by 1942 when an Air Corps Gunnery School T-shirt appeared on the cover of Life magazine.[10] In the 1960s, printed T-shirts gained popularity for self-expression as well as for advertisements, protests, and souvenirs.

Current versions are available in many different designs and fabrics, and styles include crew-neck and V-neck shirts. T-shirts are among the most worn garments of clothing used today. T-shirts are especially popular with branding for companies or merchandise, as they are inexpensive to make and purchase.
Trends
A blue crew neck T-shirt

T-shirts were originally worn as undershirts, but are now worn frequently as the only piece of clothing on the top half of the body, other than possibly a brassiere or, rarely, a waistcoat (vest). T-shirts have also become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art and photographs on display.[11]

A T-shirt typically extends to the waist. Variants of the T-shirt, such as the V-neck, have been developed. Hip hop fashion calls for tall-T shirts which may extend down to the knees. A similar item is the T-shirt dress or T-dress, a dress-length T-shirt that can be worn without pants.[12] Long T-shirts are also sometimes worn by women as nightgowns. A 1990s trend in women's clothing involved tight-fitting cropped T-shirt or crop tops short enough to reveal the midriff. Another less popular trend is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt of a contrasting color over a long-sleeved T-shirt, which is known as layering. T-shirts that are tight to the body are called fitted, tailored or baby doll T-shirts.

With the rise of social media and video sharing sites also came numerous tutorials on DIY T-shirt projects.[13] These videos typically provided instructions on how to modify an old shirt into a new, more fashionable form....

Screen printing

The most common form of commercial T-shirt decoration is screen printing. In screen printing, a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol or water based inks are applied to the shirt through mesh screens partially coated with an emulsion which limits the areas where ink is deposited. In most commercial T-shirt printing, a limited number (typically one to four) of spot colors are used to print the design. To achieve a wider color spectrum with a limited number of colors, process printing (using only cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink) or simulated process (using only white, black, red, green, blue, and gold ink) is effective. Process printing is best suited for light colored shirts.[21] The simulated process is best suited for dark colored shirts.

In 1959, the invention of plastisol provided an ink more durable and stretchable than water-based ink, allowing much more variety in T-shirt designs. Very few companies continue to use water-based inks on their shirts. The majority of companies that create shirts prefer plastisol due to the ability to print on varying colors without the need for color adjustment at the art level.

Specialty inks trend in and out of fashion and include shimmer, puff, discharge, and chino based[22] inks. A metallic foil can be heat pressed and stamped onto any plastisol ink. When combined with shimmer ink, metallics give a mirror like effect wherever the previously screened plastisol ink was applied. Specialty inks are more expensive to purchase as well as screen and tend to appear on garments in boutiques.

Other methods of decoration used on T-shirts include airbrush, applique, embroidery, impressing or embossing, and the ironing on of either flock lettering, heat transfers, or dye-sublimation transfers. Laser printers are capable of printing on plain paper using a special toner containing sublimation dyes which can then be permanently heat-transferred to T-shirts.

In the 1980s, thermochromatic dyes were used to produce T-shirts that changed color when subjected to heat. The Global Hypercolour brand of these was a common sight on the streets of the UK for a few years but has since mostly disappeared. These were also very popular in the United States among teenagers in the late 1980s. A downside of color-change garments is that the dyes can easily be damaged, especially by washing in warm water or dye other clothes during washing....Dye-sublimation printing

Dye-sublimation printing is a direct-to-garment digital printing technology using full color artwork to transfer images to polyester and polymer-coated substrate based T-shirts. Dye-sublimation (also commonly referred to as all-over printing) came into widespread use in the 21st century, enabling some designs previously impossible. Printing with unlimited colors using large CMYK printers with special paper and ink is possible, unlike screen printing which requires screens for each color of the design. All-over print T-shirts have solved the problem with color fading and the vibrancy is higher than most standard printing methods but requires synthetic fabrics for the ink to take hold. The key feature of dye-sublimated clothing is that the design is not printed on top of the garment, but permanently dyed into the threads of the shirt, ensuring that it will never fade.

Dye-sublimation is economically viable for small-quantity printing; the unit cost is similar for short or long production runs. Screen printing has higher setup costs, requiring large numbers to be produced to be cost-effective, and the unit cost is higher.

Solid ink is changed into a gas without passing through a liquid phase (sublimation), using heat and pressure. The design is first produced in a computer image file format such as jpg, gif, png, or any other. It is printed on a purpose-made computer printer (as of 2016 most commonly Epson or Ricoh brands)[citation needed] using large heat presses to vaporize the ink directly into the fabric. By mid-2012, this method had become widely used for T-shirts.
Other methods
Other methods of decorating shirts include using paints, markers, fabric transfer crayons, dyes and spray paint. Some techniques that can be used include sponging, stenciling, daubing, stamping, screen printing, bleaching, and many more.[24] Some new T-shirt creators have used designs with multiple advanced techniques, which includes using glow-in-the-dark inks, heat-sensitive fabrics, foil printing and all-over printing." (wikipedia.)