Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wore a yellow gold Rolex Datejust on a Jubilee bracelet. Rolex bloggers (that’s right) praise Dr. King as one of “the greatest heroes in Rolex history.” The $3 billion luxury brand is currently running an ad campaign that features black and white photographs of sponsored sports icons (Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus), movie stars (Robert De Niro, Audrey Hepburn) and political leaders like King, Eisenhower and Churchill. Though not featured in the campaign, the Dalai Lama is also a watch enthusiast–strange perhaps given the Tibetan take on time, but anyway. He received his first Rolex as a gift from Franklin D. Roosevelt when the Enlightened One was just seven. The gold Dalai Datejust is the same model as the one King wore: it retails for $29,000.
In February 2013, former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr (D-Ill.) pleaded guilty to conspiring with his wife to illegally spending $750k in campaign funds on personal expenses including a $43k Rolex watch and $11k worth of memorabilia associated with Dr. King.
