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Tomorrow, 4 April, will be exactly forty years since the assassination of Martin Luther King (1929-1968), a key figure in the civil rights movement in the United States. King led the struggle for the liberation of blacks and for an end to racial segregation that was preventing them from exercising the same rights as those enjoyed by whites.

King based his struggle on the message of non violence advocated by Mahatma Gandhi, who led the independence movement in India. Like Gandhi, King believed the best way to combat injustice was by passive resistance, a method that consists of refusing to take part in certain aspects of public life, without resorting to the use of force.

King was sent to prison for his acts of passive resistance. However, he never became disheartened and managed to involve more and more people who were committed to equal rights for whites and blacks. In 1963, along with 200,000 protestors, he took part in the historic March on Washington in the US capital.

The March on Washington forced to US government to take certain measures. The Civil Rights Act was approved in 1964, which prohibited discrimination in schools, in the workplace and in public spaces; in 1965 the Voting Rights Act gave blacks the right to vote.

Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis (Tennessee, USA) by James Earl Ray, a white man who had escaped from prison. King was thirty nine.