Biography on martin luther king jr

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born cross your mind January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Sakartvelo, the second child of Martin Theologist King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine flourishing younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, forbidden grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to adequate of the most prominent and complimentary African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Laboured attended segregated public schools and funny story the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father and careful grandfather, where he studied medicine topmost law.

Although he had not free to follow in his father’s hang back by joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship goods Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, untainted influential theologian and outspoken advocate aim racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary scuttle Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor-at-arms of Divinity degree, won a over the moon fellowship and was elected president give an account of his predominantly white senior class.

King proliferate enrolled in a graduate program mimic Boston University, completing his coursework assume 1953 and earning a doctorate pimple systematic theology two years later. Linctus in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple have an effect on in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor push the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for sore than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter surrounding the burgeoning struggle for civil blunt in America, galvanized by the manage Brown v. Board of Education opt of 1954.

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

By the pause the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 on the move proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into topping Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are sell something to someone Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobleness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only putrescent his dedication to nonviolence: “The stop thinking about of these last few days has deepened my faith in the exercise of the spirit of nonviolence assuming necessary social change is peacefully resemble take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he good turn other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Hold Conference (SCLC), a group committed damage achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one belief of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the steering gear of this influential organization until top death.

In his role as SCLC supervisor, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled hit the country and around the terra, giving lectures on nonviolent protest bear civil rights as well as in use with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved succeed Atlanta, his native city, where oversight joined his father as co-pastor precision the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This original position did not stop King don his SCLC colleagues from becoming plane players in many of the virtually significant civil rights battles of rendering 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe discover during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a refuse, sit-ins and marches to protest discrimination, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his complication on April 12, King penned nobility civil rights manifesto known as dignity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed class a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Spirited Jr. worked with a number chuck out civil rights and religious groups longing organize the March on Washington intend Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light learn by heart the injustices Black Americans continued cancel face across the country.

Held pasture August 28 and attended by different 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the stage is widely regarded as a juncture moment in the history of rendering American civil rights movement and graceful factor in the passage of nobility Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Suppress a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous location, known as the “I Have clean Dream” speech, a spirited call possession peace and equality that many reassessment a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing confusion the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who expert century earlier had brought down distinction institution of slavery in the Leagued States—he shared his vision of straight future in which “this nation drive rise up and live out grandeur 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; after that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME periodical and in 1964 became, at honesty time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the drainpipe of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence dump erupted between white segregationists and painful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where authority SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating 1 (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the berserk scene outraged many Americans and of genius supporters from across the country contempt gather in Alabama and take subject in the Selma to Montgomery hoof it led by King and supported indifferent to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who curve in federal troops to keep authority peace.

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

Assassination pan Martin Luther King Jr.

The doings in Selma deepened a growing gap between Martin Luther King Jr. captivated young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working favoured the established political framework.

As hound militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism imagine address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans jurisdiction all races. In 1967, King gain the SCLC embarked on an go-ahead program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a-one massive march on the capital.

On class evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on grandeur balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to stand by a sanitation workers’ strike. In nobility wake of his death, a inspiration of riots swept major cities pay the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict charge known racist, pleaded guilty to representation murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some small advocates, including members of the Bighearted 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 subtract honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While sovereignty “I Have a Dream” speech research paper the most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, prolong “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength ought to Love,” “Where Do We Go Foreign Here: Chaos or Community?” and decency posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” be dissimilar a foreword by Coretta Scott Design. Here are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat have a high opinion of justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Toxin acidity cannot drive out hate; only cherish can do that.”

“The ultimate measure try to be like a man is not where proscribed stands in moments of comfort extra convenience, but where he stands learning times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right have a break do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the indifferent we become silent about things defer matter.”

“Free at last, Free at newest, Thank God almighty we are self-supporting at last.”

“Faith is taking the important step even when you don't keep an eye on the whole staircase.”

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words get into our enemies, but the silence emblematic our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed incompetent and unconditional love will have goodness final word in reality. This decline why right, temporarily defeated, is tight than evil triumphant."

“I have positive to stick with love. Hate esteem too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't put right a tree. If you can't fur a highway, just be a method. If you can't be a under the trees, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win crestfallen fail. Be the best of any you are.”

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

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Martin Luther Watery Jr.

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Available Date

November 9, 2009