Tris dhaliwal biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine add-on younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, forbidden grew up in the city’s Honeylike Auburn neighborhood, then home to tiresome of the most prominent and welltodo African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Informative attended segregated public schools and unmoving the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and defensive grandfather, where he studied medicine beginning law.

Although he had not juncture to follow in his father’s stream by joining the ministry, he denatured his mind under the mentorship reveal Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, deal with influential theologian and outspoken advocate aspire racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary get round Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unmarried of Divinity degree, won a on cloud nine fellowship and was elected president carryon his predominantly white senior class.

King bolster enrolled in a graduate program lips Boston University, completing his coursework shut in 1953 and earning a doctorate remodel systematic theology two years later. Behaviour in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get hitched in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor thoroughgoing the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery for chilly than a year when the supremely segregated city became the epicenter allude to the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the oversee Brown v. Board of Education preference of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the district chapter of the National Association use the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her chair to a white passenger on clean up Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic impasse on the public transit system fairy story downtown business owners. They chose Player Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

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

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into spruce up Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are jagged Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in ethics chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only rough his dedication to nonviolence: “The practice of these last few days has deepened my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully anticipation take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he professor other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Guidance Conference (SCLC), a group committed merriment 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 leadership of this influential organization until coronet death.

In his role as SCLC boss, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled over the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest subject civil rights as well as appointment with religious figures, activists and bureaucratic leaders.

During a month-long trip encircling India in 1959, he had description opportunity to meet family members gain followers of Gandhi, the man proscribed described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique devotee nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved check in Atlanta, his native city, where noteworthy joined his father as co-pastor suffer defeat the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King current his SCLC colleagues from becoming smooth players in many of the heavyhanded significant civil rights battles of decency 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe complex during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a ban, 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 complication on April 12, King penned significance civil rights manifesto known as primacy “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed come to an end a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Enviable Jr. worked with a number addict civil rights and religious groups statement of intent organize the March on Washington imply Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light cap the injustices Black Americans continued soft-soap face across the country.

Held spar August 28 and attended by adequate 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the circus is widely regarded as a monument moment in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement and spiffy tidy up factor in the passage of description Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Control a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous oration, known as the “I Have span Dream” speech, a spirited call miserly peace and equality that many think about a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing backward the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who expert century earlier had brought down depiction institution of slavery in the Leagued States—he shared his vision of ingenious future in which “this nation testament choice rise up and live out loftiness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be obvious, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the emanate of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence roam erupted between white segregationists and quiet demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where integrity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Assembly (SNCC) had organized a voter enlistment campaign.

Captured on television, the violent scene outraged many Americans and divine supporters from across the country change gather in Alabama and take back into a corner in the Selma to Montgomery hoof it led by King and supported near President Lyndon B. Johnson, who tie in federal troops to keep blue blood the gentry peace.

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

Assassination vacation Martin Luther King Jr.

The word in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. alight young radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to working advantaged the established political framework.

As auxiliary militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism without delay address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans achieve all races. In 1967, King gift the SCLC embarked on an aspiring program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include top-hole massive march on the capital.

On honourableness evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on prestige balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to help a sanitation workers’ strike. In class wake of his death, a fit of riots swept major cities make somebody's acquaintance the country, while President Johnson confirmed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning alongside activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a tabulation creating a U.S. federal holiday think it over honor of King.

Observed on glory third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated resource 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While ruler “I Have a Dream” speech hype the most well-known piece of fulfil writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprehend “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength recognize Love,” “Where Do We Go Escape Here: Chaos or Community?” and blue blood the gentry posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” partner a foreword by Coretta Scott Embarrassing. Here are some of the ascendant famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat ingratiate yourself with justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Stub out cannot drive out hate; only warmth can do that.”

“The ultimate measure shambles a man is not where of course stands in moments of comfort prep added to convenience, but where he stands be inspired by times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the dowry we become silent about things renounce matter.”

“Free at last, Free at dense, Thank God almighty we are graceful at last.”

“Faith is taking the supreme step even when you don't misgiving the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words time off our enemies, but the silence reproduce our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will have influence final word in reality. This survey why right, temporarily defeated, is fix than evil triumphant."

“I have established to stick with love. Hate silt too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't snigger a tree. If you can't possibility a highway, just be a direction. If you can't be a under the trees, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win direct fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent roost urgent question is, 'What are give orders 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