Before he was a major civil rights leader and then an international icon, Martin Luther King Jr. was but a lowly grad student at Boston University in the early 1950s.

While studying here, he did grad student things: played pick-up basketball games to unwind; dated his future spouse; and happily dined gratis at friends' homes.

King likely spent most of his time in the South End, including residing at three known addresses, as well as in and around the BU campus. He would leave in 1954, as he wound down his PhD, but returned to deliver a forceful speech at the Massachusetts State House months after he won the Nobel Peace Prize.