On January 16, 2012, Martin Luther King Jr. was linked from Google, a high-traffic website. (Traffic) All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

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	Martin Luther King Jr. was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 23, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed October 30, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted June 17, 2008 Peer review Reviewed September 25, 2008 Good article nominee Not listed This article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of September 10, 2006. Current status: Former good article nominee

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King is definitely best known as a civil rights leader. It's not clear whether "non-violence" is also part of what he's best known for. It is probably clear to anyone editing this article that the non-violent "icon of American liberalism" King is a pretty pared-down version of the man himself and his impact while he was alive. (Then again, maybe this version is what's best known, now, within white America?) I'm not suggesting that we hammer this discrepancy home in the lead, but I'm not sure if we need to use this unsupported claim about what he's best known for. (A quick web search for "martin luther king best known" turns up mostly 'civil rights', then 'I had a dream'.) Well, I'm curious to know the thoughts of others, since lord knows I have no idea what's really 'best known'. Shalom, groupuscule (talk) 20:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He is definitely best known as a civil rights leader. It is also widely known that he advocated non-violent methods, so I don't see a need to change the wording in the lead (especially since the "civil rights" part is placed before the "non-violence" part).--Green4liberty (talk) 21:00, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Someone reverted his birth name (but not everywhere in the article) so I thought I'd mention it here.

The King Center itself says quite clearly that MLK Jr.'s birthname was Michael King (http://www.thekingcenter.org/upbringing-studies)

... Martin Luther King, Jr., named Michael King at birth, spent his first twelve years in the Auburn Avenue home that his parents, the Reverend Michael King and Alberta Williams King

After Rev. Williams’ death in 1931, his son-in-law Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. became Ebenezer Baptist Church’s new pastor and gradually established himself as a major figure in state and national Baptist groups. The elder King began referring to himself (and later to his son) as Martin Luther King.

I looked at the archived discussion of this, and it basically came down to Snopes (who was unsure) vs. the Autobiography of Martin Luther King and Nobel.org and PBS (who all stated his birth name as Michael King).

With the addition of The King Center itself as a source, I think it's pretty clear that this was his birthname. By the way, the reason I started looking into this was because MLK Sr.'s article itself says as much. --Quasipalm (talk) 21:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The tough part is that King Sr. said that the doctor made an error. Seems to me that King Sr.'s recollection of the naming of his child very well might be correct, and trump whatever essentially undocumented data anyone else is asserting to be correct. Anyway, I changed the header to correspond exactly to what the King Center says: not "born Michael King", which is kinda screwy anyway since nobody is born with a name (yes, I know it's a common expression), but "named" Michael King, which is arguably correct if what one is "named" is defined as "what the doctor assumed and recorded". --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, you're right that's a better wording. --Quasipalm (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone else notice the real slow load time for the article? I have recently learned that this is probably due to the extensive use of templates (particularly for citations), which every single time they're evaluated require computer processing at the secret Wikimedia bunker. I use them, too... but maybe we should try to decrease our reliance on them. Just a thought. groupuscule (talk) 14:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article seems rather messy to me. For example, the timeline hops around. In addition, the text is rocky and could benefit from reworking. For example, why is text about King's funeral and the arrest of James Earl Ray included under the "Riots" topic? The different sections have a poor flow and readily exhibit that they were written by various people. I have no experience as a real editor, no more than many WP "editors", and am therefore not qualified. King deserves better. Thanks for your time, Wordreader (talk) 22:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This one seems long overdue to be brought to good article status. The main objection in the 2008 review appears to have been that the article was 35kb of readable prose instead of a desired 50kb. Now that the article is 52kb, I think it may be time to take another run. I'll do a copyedit over the next few days, discussing any changes that seem likely to be controversial on this page. Then I'll renominate unless further research seems to be needed. Any help would be welcome! -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]