Monday is a federal holiday commemorating the birth of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Federal, state and local government offices are closed Monday; mail will not be delivered and schools are closed.

The Rev. Dr. King was born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Ga. He was killed by an assassin on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tenn. He was a pastor, a writer, a member of the executive committee of the NAACP, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and leader of non-violent demonstrations for equal rights and racial justice for African Americans.

“In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action,” his Nobel Prize biography states.

His peaceful efforts on behalf of civil rights and racial justice were undeterred by threats or acts of violence. He was arrested about 20 times and assaulted at least four times, and his home was bombed.

He was Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1963 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.