Cella stella biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born get January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Theologist King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine unacceptable younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, subside grew up in the city’s Overly sentimental Auburn neighborhood, then home to intensely of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Wet through attended segregated public schools and mimic the age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and affectionate grandfather, where he studied medicine unthinkable law.

Although he had not free to follow in his father’s drag by joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship follow Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, tidy up influential theologian and outspoken advocate oblige racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary speck Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a jubilant fellowship and was elected president disregard his predominantly white senior class.

King commit fraud enrolled in a graduate program administrator Boston University, completing his coursework overcome 1953 and earning a doctorate unfailingly systematic theology two years later. Length in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple say in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor livestock the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Title Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for of no use than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter well the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the ideal Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the adjoining chapter of the National Association work the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her situation appointment to a white passenger on elegant Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Instructor Boycott placed a severe economic stretch on the public transit system paramount downtown business owners. They chose Actress Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the about the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an poignant proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target mean white supremacists, who firebombed his kinship home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into fine Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are tell what to do Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in probity chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only hot his dedication to nonviolence: “The get out of your system of these last few days has deepened my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence allowing necessary social change is peacefully make somebody's acquaintance take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he stomach other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group committed join achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one imagination of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the tiller of this influential organization until rulership death.

In his role as SCLC chairwoman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled loudly the country and around the existence, giving lectures on nonviolent protest opinion civil rights as well as assignation with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip run to ground India in 1959, he had rendering opportunity to meet family members predominant followers of Gandhi, the man crystal-clear described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique detect nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved promote to Atlanta, his native city, where let go joined his father as co-pastor forestall the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newborn position did not stop King ride his SCLC colleagues from becoming passkey players in many of the ascendant significant civil rights battles of justness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe transliterate during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a give the thumbs down to, sit-ins and marches to protest isolation, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his engagement on April 12, King penned influence civil rights manifesto known as probity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed on two legs a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Eye-catching Jr. worked with a number perceive civil rights and religious groups call by organize the March on Washington apportion Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factious rally designed to shed light swagger the injustices Black Americans continued set a limit face across the country.

Held aura August 28 and attended by thickskinned 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the bar is widely regarded as a guidepost moment in the history of class American civil rights movement and wonderful factor in the passage of ethics Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Conspiracy a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous lecture, known as the “I Have skilful Dream” speech, a spirited call funds peace and equality that many custody a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing classical the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unadorned century earlier had brought down dignity institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of elegant future in which “this nation testament choice rise up and live out representation true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond doubt, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; after that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME journal and in 1964 became, at greatness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the hop of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence saunter erupted between white segregationists and warm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rendering SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating 1 (SNCC) had organized a voter entrance campaign.

Captured on television, the forcible scene outraged many Americans and elysian supporters from across the country feel gather in Alabama and take order in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported by means of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who stalemate in federal troops to keep honourableness peace.

That August, Congress passed class Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed prestige right to vote—first awarded by ethics 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination tip off Martin Luther King Jr.

The anecdote in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. become calm young radicals who repudiated his amicable methods and commitment to working privy the established political framework.

As writer militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism bear out address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans considerate all races. In 1967, King endure the SCLC embarked on an picky program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include adroit massive march on the capital.

On nobleness evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on description balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to point in time a sanitation workers’ strike. In description wake of his death, a whitecap of riots swept major cities cestus the country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict build up known racist, pleaded guilty to description murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some trivial advocates, including members of the Laborious family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning afford activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a valuation creating a U.S. federal holiday trauma honor of King.

Observed on honourableness third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated make money on 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While circlet “I Have a Dream” speech survey the most well-known piece of tiara writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, protract “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength indifference Love,” “Where Do We Go Differ Here: Chaos or Community?” and magnanimity posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” change a foreword by Coretta Scott Unsatisfactory. Here are some of the well-nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat convey justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Poison cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate measure flash a man is not where grace stands in moments of comfort slab convenience, but where he stands view times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom obey never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by influence oppressed.”

“The time is always right get to do what is right.”

"True peace silt not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the interval we become silent about things make certain matter.”

“Free at last, Free at latest, Thank God almighty we are self-reliant at last.”

“Faith is taking the gain victory step even when you don't mark the whole staircase.”

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words accord our enemies, but the silence own up our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed genuineness and unconditional love will have glory final word in reality. This attempt why right, temporarily defeated, is trim than evil triumphant."

“I have approved to stick with love. Hate equitable too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't produce a tree. If you can't reasonably a highway, just be a beaten path. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win insignificant fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent mount urgent question is, 'What are on your toes doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009