King was profoundly influenced in his spirituality and political activism by Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi. So why do I begin with King rather than going further back in history? The answer is that King was a hero of my lifetime. I have been aware of his name and his deeds since my primary school years. He was rarely out of the news headlines in my teenage years. I was 15 when he made his famous “I have a dream” speech, and his death at the hand of a murderer happened when I was a 20 year old soldier in Vietnam.

King rose to a leadership position in the Civil Rights Movement at a time when civil rights workers were being murdered, African Americans in the South were being lynched, and state-sanctioned violence was routinely used against the Movement. King himself was a victim of violence, surviving a stabbing and the bombing of his home. It took an extraordinary level of courage to continue to put himself in harm’s way year after year in pursuit of a cause he believed to be right.

In addition to his courage, King possessed another quality that always impresses me: a talent for superlative use of the English language. His speeches and writings have been collected in several profoundly inspirational publications. His “I have a dream” speech is widely regarded as one of the greatest speeches in human history. Similarly moving are his final speech, known as the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech, and his letter from Birmingham Jail.

Martin Luther King was not a saint. The FBI tapped his phones, and were only too willing to leak information about his private life, which showed that he was a flawed human being like the rest of us. That only increases my admiration for him. Maybe it is because of my Vietnam War service, or maybe I have always been this way, but what impresses me most is ordinary human beings displaying extraordinary courage. That makes King, in my opinion, the most impressive public figure of my lifetime.