This Day in History

Martin Luther King Wins The Nobel Prize for Peace Dr. King Is Winner Of Nobel Award Special to The New York Times OTHER HEADLINESJohnson Pledges Moves to Lessen World Tensions: At Alfred E. Smith Dinner He Hails Improvement in U.S.-Soviet Relations: Tired, He Cuts Speech: Promises Aid to Asians -- Talks at Garden Tonight After Heavy Schedule Goldwater Says Morality Is Demanded by the Nation Eisenhower Finds Silence on Issues: General Calls the Campaign Most Personal He's Seen -- Doubts Vietnam Trip President's Aide Quits on Report of Morals Case: Jenkins Was Arrested Last Week in Capital Y.M.C.A. -- Is Sent to Hospital Yanks Rout Cards on Home Runs, 8-3; Series Tied at 3-3: Maris, Mantle and Pepitone Connect in Late Innings -- Final Game Today Reds in France Assert Autonomy of World Parties: Assail Meddling in Others' Affairs -- Subservience to Moscow Is Ended: Peking's Views Scored: National Needs Held Basis of Policy -- Plan for New International Opposed Close Vote Seen in Britain Today: Surveys Indicate a Toss-up, but 2 Sides Blame Edge -- 27 Million Due at Polls 2 Detectives Slain in Brooklyn Home; Suspect a Suicide Vatican Council May Go Into 1965: A 4th Session Now Likely -- Pope Will Visit India The Home Run Is the Decisive Weapon as Yankees Beat the Cardinals President Greets Kennedy Warmly: 2 Chat Together and Call on Late President's Wife Oslo, Norway, Oct. 14--The Nobel Peace prize for 1964 was awarded today to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The 35-year-old civil rights leader is the youngest winner of the prize that Dr. Alfred Nobel instituted since the first was awarded in 1901. The prize honors acts "for the furtherance of brotherhood among men and to the abolishment or reduction of standing armies and for the extension of these purposes." The Norwegian state radio changed its program schedule tonight to broadcast a 30-minute program in honor of Dr. King. In a broadcast from Atlanta, Ga., Dr. King said that he was deeply moved by the honor. Dr. King said that "every penny" of the prize money, which amounts to about $54,000, would be given to the civil rights movement. "I am glad people of other nations are concerned with our problems here," he said. He added that he regarded the prize as a sign that world public opinion was on the side of those struggling for freedom and dignity. He also said he saw no political implications in the award. "I am a minister of the gospel, not a political leader," he said. The United States Ambassador in Oslo, Miss Margaret Joy Tibbetts, said tonight: "As an American and representative of the American people, I want to express joy and gratitude that one of my fellow countrymen has been awarded this prize." She praised the role of Dr. King "among his fellow countrymen." He is also the 12th American to receive the peace Prize. The first, in 1950, was Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Under Secretary of the United Nations. In 1960 the former leader of the African National Congress in South Africa, Chief Albert Luthuli, received the award. Dr. King is the 12th American to be awarded the peace prize. Dr. Nobel, the Swedish scientist who established it, was the inventor of dynamite. The award is given by the Norwegian Parliament. The other Nobel prizes--for chemistry, physics, medicine and physiology, and literature--will be awarded in Sweden. The award to Dr. King will be made in Oslo Dec. 10. Tribute to Nonviolence Seen Atlanta, Oct. 14--Dr. King said today that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him was a tribute to millions of Americans who followed the precepts of nonviolence. He spoke from a room at St. Joseph's Infirmary here, where he was undergoing a checkup and getting some rest. "I was deeply gratified to hear the news that I had been chosen for this most significant award," he said, "and I will certainly receive it with great humility and profound appreciation." His wife, Coretta, said: "For many years we have had to contend with the other side. For something like this to happen makes it all worthwhile." Dr. King, who said he would use the money to advance the civil rights movement, is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an Atlanta-based organization that has programs in voter registration, citizenship training, and leadership development. The organization has affiliates in several Southern cities. Most of them are operated through church groups. "I do not consider this merely an honor to me personally," Dr. King said, "but a tribute to the disciplined, wise restraint and majestic courage of gallant Negro and white persons of goodwill who have followed a nonviolent course in seeking to establish a reign of justice and a rule of love across this nation of ours." Dr. King said that he felt gratification in knowing that "the nations of the world," in bestowing the prize on him, "recognize the civil rights movement in this country as so significant a moral force as to merit such recognition." After noting that he had not had a general physical checkup in two years, Dr. King said, "I just kind of got rundown." He said the checkup would take about two days, and that he would remain in the hospital for a day or two more "to get some rest." http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1014.html#article

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