December 10, 1964

Nobel Peace Prize

Martin Luther King Jr. receives the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

The ceremony began at one o'clock in a university auditorium, not a palace — and the famous Nobel lecture did not happen that day.

1 p.m. in the University of Oslo's Aula

At one o'clock on 10 December 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. attended the Peace Prize award ceremony in the University of Oslo's Aula with members of his family and his SCLC party.

Gunnar Jahn, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, delivered the presentation speech and handed King the prize.

The Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, not Stockholm, and always on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

Accepted in the movement's name

King's acceptance speech received the honour in the name of the civil rights movement and described the award as recognition of nonviolence.

He did not treat it as a verdict that the struggle was over; the speech emphasized that the movement remained engaged in an unresolved one.

He declared that every penny of the monetary award would be used in the continuing civil rights struggle.

The lecture came the next day

The official programme scheduled King's full Nobel lecture — on racial injustice, poverty and war — for 11 December, in the same hall. Only the acceptance speech belongs to the 10th.

Of the award, reported by Nobel as $54,123 and by the King Institute as $54,000, $25,000 was subsequently allocated to the Gandhi Society for Human Rights and $12,000 to the SCLC.

King was 35 years old at the ceremony.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited

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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 describes and allocates it as a $54,000 prize.