1. Martin Luther King Jr was born in 1929
Martin Luther King Jr was born in Thirty-six years later, in 1965, he led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., a march that was instrumental in the passing of the Voting Rights Act five months later.

2. The march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Ala
 The march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., took place in March 1965.
Today, some people tend to forget that there were two failed attempts to make the journey earlier that month.

3. The first march ended in bloodshed, while the second was met with a restraining order.
That ruling was quickly overturned and, on March 21, Dr. King began the historic four-day march. Five months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

4. Grant Green “Selma March”
This upbeat instrumental by jazz guitarist Grant Green seems to reflect the jubilation surrounding the third Selma march’s completion.

5.  In 1919, this song (by James and John Johnson) was adopted by the NAACP as "The African American National Anthem."
Its resonance in the civil-rights movement is indisputable and, like all of the songs in this brief overview, it remains an incredibly moving piece of music today.

6. I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)
Nina Simone
I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)
Of the many musicians who used their music to advance the cause of civil rights, Nina Simone was one of the most passionate, most outspoken and most gifted.

7. Although many of her civil-rights-era songs had their origins earlier in the 20th century, this song was written in 1967 by noted jazz pianist and educator Dr. Billy Taylor (along with Dick Dallas), and was recorded by Simone that same year. It quickly became one of the musical mainstays of the movement.

8. Louis Armstrong
We Shall Overcome 
Many people, when asked to name a song that encapsulates the civil-rights movement, will pick "We Shall Overcome."

9. In September 1957, Armstrong first spoke publicly about race relations in America. Two weeks after nine black students were barred from their high school, the jazz trumpeter said, “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country.”

10. This Little Light of Mine
Sam Cooke
This Little Light of Mine 
Folklorist and activist Zilphia Horton did a wonderful thing when she introduced this children's gospel song to the civil-rights movement in the 1950s.

11. In the mid-'60s, vocalist Sam Cooke took this song that people were singing at sit-ins and marches and brought it into America's nicest nightclubs, putting the music of The Movement in front of an audience that probably didn't spend much time at sit-ins and marches.

12. In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther Jr. delivered the opening address to the Berlin Jazz Festival.

13. "Jazz speaks for life," King said
"Jazz speaks for life," King said. "The blues tell the story of life's difficulties — and, if you think for a moment, you realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music."