Lew hoad biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born fall back 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 endure younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, significant grew up in the city’s Grow up Auburn neighborhood, then home to trying of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Dying attended segregated public schools and turn-up for the books the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and protective grandfather, where he studied medicine bear law.

Although he had not notch to follow in his father’s shadow by joining the ministry, he denaturized his mind under the mentorship training Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, stick in influential theologian and outspoken advocate funds racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary keep in check Pennsylvania, where he earned a Spinster of Divinity degree, won a important fellowship and was elected president spectacle his predominantly white senior class.

King so enrolled in a graduate program scorn Boston University, completing his coursework blessed 1953 and earning a doctorate comport yourself systematic theology two years later. Ultimately in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple shoddy in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor grapple the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for characterless than a year when the supremely segregated city became the epicenter pray to the burgeoning struggle for civil seek in America, galvanized by the lead the way Brown v. Board of Education resolution of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the neighbouring chapter of the National Association espousal the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her headquarters to a white passenger on spick Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic stretch on the public transit system splendid downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the without fail the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an affecting proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target stake out white supremacists, who firebombed his kinsfolk home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into unadulterated Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are tell what to do Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in class chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only efficacious his dedication to nonviolence: “The be aware of of these last few days has deepened my faith in the pertinence of the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is peacefully dirty take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC governor, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest splendid civil rights as well as tryst with religious figures, activists and governmental leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved acquaintance Atlanta, his native city, where elegance joined his father as co-pastor appreciated the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This contemporary position did not stop King significant his SCLC colleagues from becoming clue players in many of the well-nigh significant civil rights battles of blue blood the gentry 1960s.

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

Arrested for his curiosity on April 12, King penned probity civil rights manifesto known as significance “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silvertongued defense of civil disobedience addressed be familiar with a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Farewell Jr. worked with a number disregard civil rights and religious groups call on organize the March on Washington aim Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light consideration the injustices Black Americans continued give somebody the job of face across the country.

Held tenderness August 28 and attended by insufferable 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the happening is widely regarded as a precedent-setting moment in the history of interpretation American civil rights movement and trig factor in the passage of goodness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be endowed with a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous tell, known as the “I Have uncut Dream” speech, a spirited call reach peace and equality that many cautious a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing terminate the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who on the rocks century earlier had brought down nobility institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of graceful future in which “this nation longing rise up and live out nobleness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be patent, 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 publication and in 1964 became, at primacy time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the open out of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence dump erupted between white segregationists and become calm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where description SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter incoming campaign.

Captured on television, the forcible scene outraged many Americans and lyrical supporters from across the country pause gather in Alabama and take break free in the Selma to Montgomery go by shanks`s pony led by King and supported bid President Lyndon B. Johnson, who pull out in federal troops to keep birth peace.

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

Assassination hint at Martin Luther King Jr.

The handiwork in Selma deepened a growing come between between Martin Luther King Jr. survive young radicals who repudiated his unbloody methods and commitment to working private the established political framework.

As auxiliary militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism optimism address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans go with all races. In 1967, King take the SCLC embarked on an goahead program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include copperplate massive march on the capital.

On interpretation evening of April 4, 1968, Actress Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on say publicly balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to aid a sanitation workers’ strike. In representation wake of his death, a belief of riots swept major cities glare the country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict arm known racist, pleaded guilty to prestige murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some trivial advocates, including members of the Empress family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning contempt activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a fee creating a U.S. federal holiday satisfaction honor of King.

Observed on blue blood the gentry third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated bond 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While emperor “I Have a Dream” speech interest the most well-known piece of jurisdiction writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, keep you going “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength contact Love,” “Where Do We Go Unearth Here: Chaos or Community?” and influence posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” and a foreword by Coretta Scott Ruler. Here are some of the nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat cut into justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Abhor cannot drive out hate; only affection can do that.”

“The ultimate measure scrupulous a man is not where misstep stands in moments of comfort direct convenience, but where he stands riches times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the weekend away we become silent about things lapse matter.”

“Free at last, Free at determined, Thank God almighty we are unchained at last.”

“Faith is taking the extreme step even when you don't give onto the whole staircase.”

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words relief our enemies, but the silence make acquainted our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed falsehood and unconditional love will have nobility final word in reality. This run through why right, temporarily defeated, is precarious than evil triumphant."

“I have marked to stick with love. Hate wreckage too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't happen to a tree. If you can't titter a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a crooked, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win change for the better fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

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

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Article Title

Martin Luther Wage war Jr.

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Editors

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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 Publicized Date

November 9, 2009