When Martin Luther King Jr. was growing up in the 1930s, his mother told him that he was just as good as anyone else. It was difficult to believe while living in the midst of harsh segregation laws. African Americans were not allowed to swim in public pools or play in public parks. They were not allowed to sit or eat or even go to school with white children. Yet his mother's words stuck with him. Martin Luther King Jr.'s passion and commitment to equality led him to become the leader of the civil rights movement. He took a nonviolent approach to protest, which won him the Novel Peace Prize in 1964.