Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. is announced as the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize laureate
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗He was asleep in an Atlanta hospital room when Coretta Scott King telephoned to tell him he had won.
A press conference at St. Joseph's Hospital
On 14 October 1964 the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in Oslo that Martin Luther King Jr. had won that year's Peace Prize for his nonviolent struggle for civil rights for Black Americans.
King had checked into an Atlanta hospital for rest and a physical examination and was asleep when his wife rang with the news.
He, Coretta Scott King and the SCLC aide Andrew Young then faced reporters at St. Joseph's Hospital rather than at an office or auditorium.
The money was spoken for immediately
On being notified, King said the prize money would be devoted to advancing the civil rights movement.
Nobel's own biography gives the sum as $54,123; the King Institute commonly summarizes it as $54,000.
He was 35 — the youngest Peace Prize laureate up to that time.
Announcement, not ceremony
This was the laureate announcement. King did not receive the prize in person until the Oslo ceremony on 10 December.
The record the committee was rewarding did not include Selma: those marches came in March 1965, five months after this announcement.
The committee's stated motivation was his nonviolent struggle for civil rights for the African American population.
Sources
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What the sources leave uncertain
- Sources round the monetary award differently: Nobel's biography gives $54,123, while the King Institute commonly summarizes it as $54,000.