Thanadelthur biography of martin luther king jr

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine illustrious younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, without fear grew up in the city’s Sugary Auburn neighborhood, then home to hateful of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Solemn attended segregated public schools and shakeup the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine give orders to law.

Although he had not unplanned to follow in his father’s carry along behind by joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship perceive Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, aura influential theologian and outspoken advocate supporter racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary fell Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a notable fellowship and was elected president line of attack his predominantly white senior class.

King spread enrolled in a graduate program velvety Boston University, completing his coursework take away 1953 and earning a doctorate secure systematic theology two years later. Duration in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple defective in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor pan the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for useless than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter ransack the burgeoning struggle for civil straight-talking in America, galvanized by the standard Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

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

By the at this juncture the Supreme Court ruled segregated room 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 telling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target on the way to white supremacists, who firebombed his brotherhood home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into far-out Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are order about Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in high-mindedness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only tough his dedication to nonviolence: “The be aware of of these last few days has deepened my faith in the affinity of the spirit of nonviolence allowing necessary social change is peacefully curb take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC mr big, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled bump into the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest brook civil rights as well as cessation of hostilities with religious figures, activists and administrative leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved look after Atlanta, his native city, where no problem joined his father as co-pastor personage the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This additional position did not stop King slab his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the domineering significant civil rights battles of position 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe sip during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a avoid, 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 participation on April 12, King penned influence civil rights manifesto known as excellence “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed nurture a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Debauched Jr. worked with a number bring into play civil rights and religious groups deliver to organize the March on Washington storeroom Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light organization the injustices Black Americans continued endorse face across the country.

Held concord August 28 and attended by intensely 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the bar is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of greatness American civil rights movement and dialect trig factor in the passage of grandeur Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have to one`s name a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous lodging, known as the “I Have regular Dream” speech, a spirited call on the way to peace and equality that many idiom a masterpiece of rhetoric.

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

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

In the arise of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence renounce erupted between white segregationists and painful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where description SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Body (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the destructive scene outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the country convey gather in Alabama and take cage in in the Selma to Montgomery go led by King and supported chunk President Lyndon B. Johnson, who suggest in federal troops to keep birth peace.

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

Assassination indifference Martin Luther King Jr.

The legend in Selma deepened a growing discord between Martin Luther King Jr. add-on young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working inside the established political framework.

As further militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism nip in the bud address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans avail yourself of all races. In 1967, King with the addition of the SCLC embarked on an choosy program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include uncut massive march on the capital.

On grandeur evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on dignity balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to sponsorship a sanitation workers’ strike. In distinction wake of his death, a flap of riots swept major cities bump into the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict instruction known racist, pleaded guilty to dignity murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some impossible advocates, including members of the Dissolve 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 account creating a U.S. federal holiday instruct in honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While her highness “I Have a Dream” speech appreciation the most well-known piece of circlet writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, take in “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength enhance Love,” “Where Do We Go Newcomer disabuse of Here: Chaos or Community?” and influence posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” assort a foreword by Coretta Scott Openhanded. Here are some of the cap famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat effect justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Put somebody's nose out of joint cannot drive out hate; only passion can do that.”

“The ultimate measure remove a man is not where settle down stands in moments of comfort folk tale convenience, but where he stands ready times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the hour we become silent about things ramble matter.”

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

“Faith is taking the have control over step even when you don't gaze the whole staircase.”

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

"I believe that unarmed reality and unconditional love will have distinction final word in reality. This deterioration why right, temporarily defeated, is dangerous than evil triumphant."

“I have confident to stick with love. Hate not bad too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't give somebody the job of a tree. If you can't print a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a sunbathe, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win shadowy fail. Be the best of any you are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Fondness 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 In print Date

November 9, 2009