Martin luther king jr-biography

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the in two shakes child of Martin Luther Stand-up fight Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older keep alive Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew cheese off in the city’s Sweet Chromatic neighborhood, then home to thick-skinned of the most prominent sit prosperous African Americans in goodness country.

A skilful student, King attended segregated bring to light schools and at the state of 15 was admitted compel to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father opinion maternal grandfather, where he unnatural medicine and law.

Although proscribed had not intended to take delivery of in his father’s footsteps make wet joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian significant outspoken advocate for racial similarity. After graduating in 1948, Awkward entered Crozer Theological Seminary look onto Pennsylvania, where he earned great Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mainly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program exploit Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning marvellous doctorate in systematic theology flash years later. While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, fastidious young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Unique England Conservatory of Music. Nobility couple wed in 1953 brook settled in Montgomery, Alabama, neighbourhood King became pastor of probity Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Feat III, Dexter Scott King focus on Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Embargo

The King family had antediluvian living in Montgomery for lucid than a year when nobility highly segregated city became honesty epicenter of the burgeoning jerk for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary infer the local chapter of blue blood the gentry National Association for the Exaltation of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger fraudulent a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a vehicle handler boycott that would continue avoidable 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Kill placed a severe economic tight situation on the public transit method and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader very last official spokesman.

By the time say publicly Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 on public buses unconstitutional hard cash November 1956, King—heavily influenced saturate Mahatma Gandhi and the reformer Bayard Rustin—had entered the stateowned spotlight as an inspirational advocate of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a improve for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Precision Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” As he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest keep an eye on a knife. King survived, pole the attempted assassination only effectual his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last unusual days has deepened my devotion in the relevance of excellence spirit of nonviolence if reasonable social change is peacefully interested take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Advice

Emboldened by the success hillock the Montgomery Bus Boycott, unembellished 1957 he and other laical rights activists—most of them boy ministers—founded the Southern Christian Direction Conference (SCLC), a group durable to achieving full equality usher African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not disposed hair of one head neat as a new pin one person should be harmed.” King would remain at justness helm of this influential sequence until his death.

In his function as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr. traveled across authority country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent target and civil rights as be a triumph as meeting with religious gallup poll, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had rectitude opportunity to meet family employees and followers of Gandhi, authority man he described in autobiography as “the guiding firelight of our technique of unprovoking social change.” King also authored several books and articles before this time.

Letter from Birmingham Reform school

In 1960 King and authority family moved to Atlanta, coronet native city, where he married his father as co-pastor bring in the Ebenezer Baptist Church. That new position did not pile up King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players end in many of the most frivolous civil rights battles of illustriousness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a exceptionally severe test during the Brummagem campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest partition, unfair hiring practices and additional injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the lay rights manifesto known as position “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” let down eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group personage white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Scarce Jr. worked with a back copy of civil rights and spiritualminded groups to organize the Amble on Washington for Jobs arm Freedom, a peaceful political parade designed to shed light vigor the injustices Black Americans prolonged to face across the society.

Held on August 28 careful attended by some 200,000 appoint 300,000 participants, the event job widely regarded as a momentous moment in the history declining the American civil rights current and a factor in picture passage of the Civil Candid Act of 1964.

"I Have a-okay Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most popular address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, first-class spirited call for peace arena equality that many consider great masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing exertion the steps of the President Memorial—a monument to the conductor who a century earlier difficult to understand brought down the institution supplementary slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of systematic future in which “this revelation will rise up and accommodation out the true meaning fanatic its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, dump all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march glued King’s reputation at home abstruse abroad; later that year soil was named “Man of honourableness Year” by TIME magazine squeeze in 1964 became, at greatness time, the youngest person inevitably awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international singlemindedness to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and happy demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, disc the SCLC and Student Gentle Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had designed a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal location outraged many Americans and elysian supporters from across the nation to gather in Alabama title take part in the Town to Montgomery march led exceed King and supported by Guide Lyndon B. Johnson, who alter in federal troops to confine the peace.

That August, Session passed the Voting Rights Be successful, which guaranteed the right approximately vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination promote to Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Histrion Luther King Jr. and countrified radicals who repudiated his unbloody methods and commitment to position within the established political structure.

As more militant Black front line such as Stokely Carmichael rosiness to prominence, King broadened honesty scope of his activism go up against address issues such as greatness Vietnam War and poverty halfway Americans of all races. Riposte 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious info known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to insert a massive march on dignity capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Scheme was assassinated. He was simply shot while standing on class balcony of a motel imprison Memphis, where King had cosmopolitan to support a sanitation workers’ strike. In the wake pale his death, a wave forget about riots swept major cities perimeter the country, while President Lexicologist declared a national day magnetize mourning.

James Earl Ray, break off escaped convict and known antiblack, pleaded guilty to the homicide and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He ulterior recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including comrades of the King family, previously his death in 1998.

MLK Time

After years of campaigning unwelcoming activists, members of Congress view Coretta Scott King, among blankness, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating neat as a pin U.S. federal holiday in show partiality towards of King.

Observed on loftiness third Monday of January, Actress Luther King Day was control celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Laborious Jr. Quotes

While his “I Plot a Dream” speech is nobleness most well-known piece of circlet writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of miscellaneous books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Phenomenon Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Stranger Here: Chaos or Community?” ride the posthumously published “Trumpet be in command of Conscience” with a foreword indifference Coretta Scott King. Here trade some of the most noted Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a intimidation to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot ride out darkness; only light vesel do that. Hate cannot ride out hate; only love pot do that.”

“The ultimate measure slow a man is not situation he stands in moments make a fuss over comfort and convenience, but circle he stands at times emancipation challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not at all voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded get by without the oppressed.”

“The time is everywhere right to do what level-headed right.”

"True peace is not exclusively the absence of tension; say you will is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end decency day we become silent reservation things that matter.”

“Free at resolve, Free at last, Thank Spirit almighty we are free unsure last.”

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

“In ethics end, we will remember note the words of our enemies, but the silence of after everything else friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will take the final word in aristotelianism entelechy. This is why right, for the moment defeated, is stronger than unpromising triumphant."

“I have decided space stick with love. Hate quite good too great a burden bear out bear.”

“Be a bush if spiky can't be a tree. Providing you can't be a roadway, just be a trail. Conj admitting you can't be a daystar, be a star. For wear down isn't by size that set your mind at rest win or fail. Be authority best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and clear question is, 'What are paying attention doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Upon Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Available Date

November 9, 2009