Martin Luther King was one of the leaders of the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. He fought for what he believed in, using no weapons and wielding no political power, instead choosing the path of non-violence. King brought America closer than it had ever previously been to realizing that treating black people as inferior citizens is a shame. And though he didn’t manage to achieve his goal fully, it doesn’t take away from his heroism and successes.

We all know his famous speech, “I have a dream.” In fact, we know it so well that we stopped paying attention to the fact that King was making demands in that speech, not wishes. We’ve come to confuse his peaceful approach with passiveness. But Martin Luther was anything but passive. Let’s uncover the real story and begin from the very start.

Michael King, Martin’s father, was the second child in the family of Jim and Delia King. They lived in near poverty with their ten children. Once, when Michael was twelve, and his mother sent him on an errand, a white man beat him up because he refused to drop his task to bring him a bucket of water. When Jim King learned about the incident, he beat up the man, who was the owner of a local mill. And while slavery wasn’t a thing at that time already, beating up a white man basically meant death for black folk. So, Jim King fled to the woods and stayed there for several months until he learned that the mill owner was no longer angry.

Delia King was a sweet Christian woman. She didn’t know how to read and write until the age of forty-five, and what little she knew, she learned from reading the Bible. Michael recalled that despite the worst hardships, Delia never put her head down because she believed in God. Every Sunday, all her children would go to church with her, alternating between Methodist and Baptist churches.

Jim King, however, had no interest in religion. He was a heavy drinker and an angry drunk, too. One day, he came home after drinking and slapped Delia. At that, Michael wrestled him to the ground. Jim threatened to kill him, and, having taken the threat seriously, Michael first fled to the woods for a bit. Then left home completely, heading for Atlanta — he was only fourteen at the time.