This is the balcony of the Lorein Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. It was here at one minute past six on the evening of the 4th of April 1958 that the Baptist minister and civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in the throat.

He was pronounced dead a little more than hour later at St. Joseph Hospital. King is one of the most loved and revered figures in recent American history. In his lifetime and posthumously, he was the recipient of numerous awards and prizes. In 1964 at the age of 35, he became the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

One o the main reasons King received such recognition was because like Mahatma Gandhi before him, He espoused the philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience. This sometimes led to conflict with other African American leaders who believed in more direct means of protest. Malcolm X called the 1963 march on Washington for jobs and freedom, the fast Washington. When it's original focus on the desperate conditions faced by African Americans in the south was altered.

King is one of the central figures we capitulated to President Kennedy’s desire to make the march less frightened in tone. In the end, the march was still a great success with more than a quarter of a million attending. As news of King’s death spread, there was a wave of riots in some 60 cities across America.

On the 9th of April, 5 days after the shooting, President Lyndon B Johnson declared a national day of mourning. The crowd who attended his funeral on the same day numbered 300,000 and included politicians like future president Richard Nixon and JFK’s younger brother, Senator Bobby Kennedy who would himself be cut down by an assassin’s bullet only two months and two days later.

Suring King’s funeral, his close friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite, hymn Take My Hand Precious Lord. And the eulogy was given by the man himself. A recording was played at his noted drum major sermon from the 4th of February 1968 in which he requested that his honors should not be recalled but that he had tried to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and love and serve humanity.

King’s influence and prestige is only grown in the years following his assassination. Every year, on the 3rd Monday of January, close to his birthday on the 15th, America celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a public holiday.