Kahlil Gibran. Courtesy of The Short Story Project

The South End has been home to a surprising variety of the 20th century’s most influential world leaders over the years.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ho Chi Minh spent time in the South End before going on to eventually lead their own political movements, and romantic poet Kahlil Gibran found local mentors and patrons in the neighborhood while producing a healthy collection of works that includes his masterpiece The Prophet.

King held three addresses in the South End in the early 1950s, including one at 396 Northampton Street, which was his first home as a married man. He also lived at 397 Massachusetts Avenue and 170 St. Botolph Street, choosing to live off campus in order to experience life in the city.

Living in the South End also caused King to meet his wife, Coretta Scott, while pursuing his doctorate in systematic theology.

The South End was the nexus of African- American life in Boston at the time, said Ryan Hendrickson, assistant director for manuscripts at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

“It was kind of a formative experience,” said Hendrickson. “[King] was out in the city. He had influences coming from different directions.”

Like King, Minh came to Boston for the chance to experience the wider world. Minh’s stay in the South End was part of his wide-ranging journey through the 1910s, which saw him working in kitchens in France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Whether Minh’s background working in the kitchen of the Omni Parker House Hotel helped him land his later role as Vietnam’s revolutionary leader is unclear, but his brief time in the United States, from 1912 to 1913, did have some influence on the country he built.

“All men are created equal,” reads the first line of Vietnam’s declaration of independence. “They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Gibran spent the most time in the South End of the three men, having come to America at the age of 12. Today, the Khalil Gibran Memorial stands at 201-227 Dartmouth Street, across the street from Boston Public Library’s McKim Building where Gibran was educated.