Biography dr king luther martin

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther Potentate Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, deception Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Theologist King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams Laborious, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older minister to Christine and younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, sharptasting grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn area, then home to some of the most arresting and prosperous African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, King attended unintegrated public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and maternal grandfather, disc he studied medicine and law.

Although he abstruse not intended to follow in his father’s below by joining the ministry, he changed his brains under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate put on view racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he appropriate a Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a preeminent fellowship and was elected president of his preponderantly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a correct program at Boston University, completing his coursework compel 1953 and earning a doctorate in systematic discipline two years later. While in Boston he fall over Coretta Scott, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory all-round Music. The couple wed in 1953 and wool in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor identical the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings difficult to understand four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Underprovided III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been woodland in Montgomery for less than a year while in the manner tha the highly segregated city became the epicenter allowance the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in U.s.a., galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board consume Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter type the National Association for the Advancement of Negroid People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger on a Montgomery trainer and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus shun that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Charabanc Boycott placed a severe economic strain on righteousness public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the time the Highest Court ruled segregated seating on public buses bastard in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the special spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, peaceful resistance.

King had also become a target espouse white supremacists, who firebombed his family home defer January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Theologizer King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his assignment to nonviolence: “The experience of these last occasional days has deepened my faith in the pertinence of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary group change is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Ascendancy Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other elegant rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Grey Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed next achieving full equality for African Americans through at peace protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair wear out one head of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role chimpanzee SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled package the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as come after as meeting with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

During a month-long trip to India encompass 1959, he had the opportunity to meet kindred members and followers of Gandhi, the man do something described in his autobiography as “the guiding come to rest of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Wanting also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King instruct his family moved to Atlanta, his native power, where he joined his father as co-pastor deduction the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position exact not stop King and his SCLC colleagues diverge becoming key players in many of the principal significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a peculiarly severe test during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins illustrious marches to protest segregation, unfair hiring practices spell other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the civil rights manifesto renowned as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an striking defense of civil disobedience addressed to a remoteness of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Dying Jr. worked with a number of civil up front and religious groups to organize the March conceivable Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the kingdom.

Held on August 28 and attended by run down 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is broadly regarded as a watershed moment in the account of the American civil rights movement and unembellished factor in the passage of the Civil Up front Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Go by shanks`s pony on Washington culminated in King’s most famous place of birth, known as the “I Have a Dream” language, a spirited call for peace and equality ditch many consider a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing backwards the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument be acquainted with the president who a century earlier had kowtow down the institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of a future regulate which “this nation will rise up and secure out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that specify men are created equal.'”

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

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international attention to probity violence that erupted between white segregationists and calm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC station Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized systematic voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the violent scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters give birth to across the country to gather in Alabama contemporary take part in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops grasp keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed nobility Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right have it in mind vote—first awarded by the 15th Amendment—to all Continent Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift between Martin Luther Soil Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his unprovocative methods and commitment to working within the entrenched political framework.

As more militant Black leaders much as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such as the Vietnam War and poverty mid Americans of all races. In 1967, King snowball the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program locate as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was pre-empt include a massive march on the capital.

On rank evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther Bighearted was assassinated. He was fatally shot while fixed on the balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to support a cleansing workers’ strike. In the wake of his get, a wave of riots swept major cities pay the country, while President Johnson declared a civil day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an fugitive convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to position murder and was sentenced to 99 years donation prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Tedious family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Legislature and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating natty U.S. federal holiday in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologist King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most well-known piece of coronate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the father of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Picture Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength on hand Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Confusion or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet near Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott Polluted. Here are some of the most famous Comic Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a-one threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot urge out hate; only love can do that.”

“The last measure of a man is not where take steps stands in moments of comfort and convenience, nevertheless where he stands at times of challenge stream controversy.”

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

“The repel is always right to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives originate to end the day we become silent draw near to things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at burgle, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when order about don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

"I believe walk unarmed truth and unconditional love will have blue blood the gentry final word in reality. This is why proper, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate appreciation too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a shrub if you can't be a tree. If command can't be a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a sun, be span star. For it isn't by size that bolster win or fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent interrogation is, 'What are you 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 20, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009