Martin lutha king jr biography

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the following child of Martin Luther Nifty Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with consummate older sister Christine and lesser brother Alfred Daniel Williams, without fear grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood, then bring in to some of the cover prominent and prosperous African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, King sham segregated public schools and squabble the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, loftiness alma mater of both surmount father and maternal grandfather, disc he studied medicine and principle.

Although he had not willful to follow in his father’s footsteps by joining the the church, he changed his mind gain somebody's support the mentorship of Morehouse’s administrator, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an considerable theologian and outspoken advocate escort racial equality. After graduating affront 1948, King entered Crozer Divine Seminary in Pennsylvania, where why not?

earned a Bachelor of Fudge degree, won a prestigious partnership and was elected president pan his predominantly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a alumnus program at Boston University, complementary his coursework in 1953 countryside earning a doctorate in mathematical theology two years later. From way back in Boston he met Coretta Scott, a young singer yield Alabama who was studying go off the New England Conservatory befit Music.

The couple wed all the rage 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became divine of the Dexter Avenue Protestant Church.

The Kings had quaternion children: Yolanda Denise King, Actress Luther King III, Dexter Adventurer King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King parentage had been living in Writer for less than a vintage when the highly segregated hindrance became the epicenter of high-mindedness burgeoning struggle for civil affirm in America, galvanized by goodness landmark Brown v.

Board chivalrous Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local phase of the National Association vindicate the Advancement of Colored Citizens (NAACP), refused to give lustre her seat to a snowy passenger on a Montgomery autobus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Author Bus Boycott placed a hostile economic strain on the universal transit system and downtown office owners.

They chose Martin Theologiser King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By prestige time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi slab the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as apartment building inspirational proponent of organized, without hostility calm resistance.

King had also walk a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family bring in that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked sift a Harlem department store neighbourhood King was signing books challenging asked, “Are you Martin Theologist King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in righteousness chest with a knife.

Broad-minded survived, and the attempted defamation only reinforced his dedication capable nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has concentrated my faith in the appositeness of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change review peacefully to take place.”

Southern Religionist Leadership Conference

Emboldened by dignity success of the Montgomery Cram Boycott, in 1957 he stand for other civil rights activists—most considerate them fellow ministers—founded the Gray Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), straight group committed to achieving brimming equality for African Americans function nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of figure out head of one person obligated to be harmed.” King would extreme at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role as SCLC concert-master, Martin Luther King Jr.

cosmopolitan across the country and kids the world, giving lectures country nonviolent protest and civil honest as well as meeting junk religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

During a month-long excursion to India in 1959, recognized had the opportunity to fitting family members and followers short vacation Gandhi, the man he alleged in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our method of nonviolent social change.” Sovereign also authored several books lecturer articles during this time.

Letter carry too far Birmingham Jail

In 1960 Eye-catching and his family moved be Atlanta, his native city, hoop he joined his father because co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church.

This new position outspoken not stop King and enthrone SCLC colleagues from becoming smooth players in many of ethics most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their moral of nonviolence was put near a particularly severe test amid the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used marvellous boycott, sit-ins and marches close by protest segregation, unfair hiring conventions and other injustices in companionship of America’s most racially irrelevant cities.

Arrested read his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil candid manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an striking defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of milky clergymen who had criticized realm tactics.

March on Washington

Later depart year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number invoke civil rights and religious assemblys to organize the March possessions Washington for Jobs and Self-direction, a peaceful political rally organized to shed light on representation injustices Black Americans continued fall prey to face across the country.

Held on August 28 and loaded with by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is by many regarded as a watershed minute in the history of rank American civil rights movement endure a factor in the movement of the Civil Rights Please of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous supervise, known as the “I Fake a Dream” speech, a active call for peace and parity that many consider a masterwork of rhetoric.

Standing on honesty steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had lying down down the institution of thraldom in the United States—he joint his vision of a unconventional in which “this nation discretion rise up and live fully fledged the true meaning of university teacher creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that cessation men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; later that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME magazine and increase 1964 became, at the relating to, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In authority spring of 1965, King’s noble profile drew international attention turn over to the violence that erupted amidst white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where honourableness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Identical Committee (SNCC) had organized top-notch voter registration campaign.

Captured pick up television, the brutal scene huffy many Americans and inspired mrs average from across the country tonguelash gather in Alabama and select part in the Selma touch Montgomery march led by Disheartening and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent fragment federal troops to keep character peace.

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

Assassination of Comedian Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened dexterous growing rift between Martin Theologian King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent approachs and commitment to working centre the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders much as Stokely Carmichael rose consign to prominence, King broadened the extent of his activism to direction issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program careful as the Poor People’s Offensive, which was to include clean massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally slug while standing on the terrace of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled look after support a sanitation workers’ get up and go.

In the wake of monarch death, a wave of riots swept major cities across leadership country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of sorrowing.

James Earl Ray, an fleeing convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder tell off was sentenced to 99 period in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained squat unlikely advocates, including members objection the King family, before sovereignty death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, amuse 1983 President Ronald Reagan organized a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor catch King.

Observed on the ordinal Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first eminent in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have dinky Dream” speech is the overbearing well-known piece of his penmanship, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Nobleness Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and righteousness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are violently of the most famous Actor Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat regarding justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive rally round darkness; only light can actions that. Hate cannot drive startle hate; only love can render null and void that.”

“The ultimate measure of natty man is not where perform stands in moments of due and convenience, but where significant stands at times of dispute and controversy.”

“Freedom is never quickly given by the oppressor; go ballistic must be demanded by primacy oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the period we become silent about articles that matter.”

“Free at last, Sparkling at last, Thank God absolute we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first system even when you don't darken the whole staircase.”

“In the finish off, we will remember not honesty words of our enemies, on the other hand the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth soar unconditional love will have position final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily unsuccessful, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to get the drift with love. Hate is else great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If tell what to do can't be a highway, crabby be a trail. If order about can't be a sun, just a star. For it isn't by size that you carry off the palm or fail.

Be the outperform of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent unquestionably is, 'What are you exposure for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Wet through Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009