Heed Their Rising Voices

Heed Their Rising Voices is a 1960 newspaper advertisement published in the New York Times. It was published on March 29, 1960 and paid for by the "Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South". The purpose of the advertisement was to draw attention and support towards Martin Luther King Jr. A recent felony charge of perjury was leveled against him and could have resulted in a lengthy imprisonment. The headline of the advertisement was drawn from a phrase used in the New York Times editorial, "Amendment XV", published on March 19, 1960. The advertisement became the source of a libel suit in the United States Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964).