Martin Luther King Jr. might have been a giant in the Civil Rights Movement, but at home, the doting father of four was simply dad. As we observe what would have been his 96th birthday, look back at some of his family photos with his children Yolanda,

Between 1957 and his assassination on April 4, 1968, at age 39, Martin Luther King Jr. gave 2,500 speeches, wrote sermons and homilies and published five books. Meanwhile, the number of books written about King surely number in the thousands.

It was first proposed four days after King’s 1968 assassination outside a Memphis motel. It took 15 years until it became a federal holiday.