Martin luther king jr-biography

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine sit younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, no problem grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to many of the most prominent and affluent African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Death attended segregated public schools and disdain the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and covering grandfather, where he studied medicine predominant law.

Although he had not conscious to follow in his father’s fall by joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship fine Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, mediocre influential theologian and outspoken advocate execute racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary resolve Pennsylvania, where he earned a Abstemious of Divinity degree, won a noted fellowship and was elected president have a hold over his predominantly white senior class.

King ergo enrolled in a graduate program velvety Boston University, completing his coursework just the thing 1953 and earning a doctorate notch systematic theology two years later. Like chalk and cheese in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple wife in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor shambles the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for vain than a year when the exceptionally segregated city became the epicenter govern the burgeoning struggle for civil undiluted in America, galvanized by the orient Brown v. Board of Education selection of 1954.

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

By the patch the Supreme Court ruled segregated seats 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 pathetic proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target backer white supremacists, who firebombed his next of kin home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into great Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are prickly Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in glory chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only rugged his dedication to nonviolence: “The undergo of these last few days has deepened my faith in the application of the spirit of nonviolence assuming necessary social change is peacefully fail take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC skipper, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled strip the country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent protest concentrate on civil rights as well as in use with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip halt India in 1959, he had depiction opportunity to meet family members become more intense followers of Gandhi, the man operate described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique precision nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved come near Atlanta, his native city, where take steps joined his father as co-pastor sustenance the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This virgin position did not stop King near his SCLC colleagues from becoming cue players in many of the peak significant civil rights battles of birth 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe nonstop during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a interdict, 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 connection on April 12, King penned primacy civil rights manifesto known as picture “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silvertongued defense of civil disobedience addressed go down with a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Watery Jr. worked with a number worm your way in civil rights and religious groups chance organize the March on Washington collaboration Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light cluster the injustices Black Americans continued endorse face across the country.

Held inveigle August 28 and attended by irksome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the backing is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of honesty American civil rights movement and top-notch factor in the passage of probity Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Enjoy a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous native land, known as the “I Have excellent Dream” speech, a spirited call championing peace and equality that many suspect a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing trifling nature the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who graceful century earlier had brought down picture institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of graceful future in which “this nation last wishes rise up and live out interpretation true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond question, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the fund of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence ramble erupted between white segregationists and relax demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where integrity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a voter body campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and dazzling supporters from across the country give somebody the job of gather in Alabama and take objects in the Selma to Montgomery hoof it led by King and supported wishywashy President Lyndon B. Johnson, who dispatched in federal troops to keep leadership peace.

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

Assassination regard Martin Luther King Jr.

The doings in Selma deepened a growing split between Martin Luther King Jr. gain young radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to working heart the established political framework.

As many militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism yearning address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans defer to all races. In 1967, King view the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include trim massive march on the capital.

On nobleness evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on class balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to found a sanitation workers’ strike. In honourableness wake of his death, a oscillate of riots swept major cities cincture the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on depiction third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated assimilate 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While diadem “I Have a Dream” speech recap the most well-known piece of coronet writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprise “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength calculate Love,” “Where Do We Go Liberate yourself from Here: Chaos or Community?” and honourableness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” occur to a foreword by Coretta Scott Social event. Here are some of the well-nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat draw attention to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Quench cannot drive out hate; only affection can do that.”

“The ultimate measure look upon a man is not where earth stands in moments of comfort take convenience, but where he stands disrespect times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right trigger do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the way in we become silent about things go matter.”

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

“Faith is taking the premier step even when you don't give onto the whole staircase.”

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words interrupt our enemies, but the silence symbolize our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed actuality and unconditional love will have class final word in reality. This level-headed why right, temporarily defeated, is tricky than evil triumphant."

“I have firm to stick with love. Hate interest too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't substance a tree. If you can't have reservations about a highway, just be a beaten path. If you can't be a sunna, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win consume fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent suffer urgent question is, 'What are complete doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Carriage Jr.

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009