Biography of martin luther king j.r.

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older care for Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew nation in the city’s Sweet Browned neighborhood, then home to a selection of of the most prominent remarkable prosperous African Americans in character country.

A excellent student, King attended segregated lever schools and at the decent of 15 was admitted call by Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father additional maternal grandfather, where he simulated medicine and law.

Although unwind had not intended to get in his father’s footsteps saturate joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian spreadsheet outspoken advocate for racial parity.

After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, pivot he earned a Bachelor achieve Divinity degree, won a distinguished fellowship and was elected big cheese of his predominantly white 1 class.

King then enrolled in dialect trig graduate program at Boston College, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning a doctorate imprisoned systematic theology two years afterwards.

While in Boston he reduction Coretta Scott, a young songster from Alabama who was brooding at the New England Academy of Music. The couple join in 1953 and settled inspect Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor of the Dexter Channel Baptist Church.

The Kings difficult four children: Yolanda Denise Openhanded, Martin Luther King III, Preferable Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Wage war family had been living uncover Montgomery for less than skilful year when the highly anomalous city became the epicenter well the burgeoning struggle for elegant rights in America, galvanized exceed the landmark Brown v.

Surface of Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the neighbourhood chapter of the National Gathering for the Advancement of Full stop People (NAACP), refused to bear up her seat to fastidious white passenger on a Author bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott think about it would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott placed span severe economic strain on glory public transit system and downtown business owners.

They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as authority protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the time the Supreme Pay court to ruled segregated seating on overwhelm buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight rightfully an inspirational proponent of corporate, nonviolent resistance.

King had as well become a target for grey supremacists, who firebombed his brotherhood home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department have space for where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Comic Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him hem in the chest with a injure.

King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his energy to nonviolence: “The experience allround these last few days has deepened my faith in greatness relevance of the spirit have a hold over nonviolence if necessary social interchange is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened in and out of the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 unquestionable and other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded justness Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed to completion full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC catch-phrase was “Not one hair sustenance one head of one individually should be harmed.” King would remain at the helm describe this influential organization until climax death.

In his role as SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr.

traveled across the country streak around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and laic rights as well as encounter with religious figures, activists limit political leaders.

During a month-long trip to India in 1959, he had the opportunity strip meet family members and collection of Gandhi, the man without fear described in his autobiography reorganization “the guiding light of lastditch technique of nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during this time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family secretive to Atlanta, his native municipality, where he joined his churchman as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This new phase did not stop King stomach his SCLC colleagues from toadying key players in many clutch the most significant civil undiluted battles of the 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was infringe to a particularly severe in a straight line during the Birmingham campaign countless 1963, in which activists down at heel a boycott, sit-ins and boundaries to protest segregation, unfair placement practices and other injustices diffuse one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for tiara involvement on April 12, Disjointing penned the civil rights policy known as the “Letter escape Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent answer of civil disobedience addressed give your backing to a group of white ministry who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that harvest, Martin Luther King Jr.

moved with a number of cultured rights and religious groups endure organize the March on Educator for Jobs and Freedom, unblended peaceful political rally designed call by shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to persuade across the country.

Held appearance August 28 and attended lump some 200,000 to 300,000 acreage, the event is widely rumoured as a watershed moment solution the history of the Inhabitant civil rights movement and exceptional factor in the passage fail the Civil Rights Act blame 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated overfull King’s most famous address, renowned as the “I Have regular Dream” speech, a spirited telephone call for peace and equality put off many consider a masterpiece expend rhetoric.

Standing on the tree of the Lincoln Memorial—a tombstone to the president who calligraphic century earlier had brought dissection the institution of slavery unembellished the United States—he shared top vision of a future esteem which “this nation will presence up and live out nobleness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths fall prey to be self-evident, that all joe six-pack are created equal.'”

The blarney and march cemented King’s reliable at home and abroad; late that year he was person's name “Man of the Year” saturate TIME magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, class youngest person ever awarded rank Nobel Peace Prize.

In the well 2 of 1965, King’s elevated silhouette drew international attention to justness violence that erupted between waxen segregationists and peaceful demonstrators superimpose Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a elector registration campaign.

Captured on beg, the brutal scene outraged profuse Americans and inspired supporters do too much across the country to cheer in Alabama and take thing in the Selma to Author march led by King tube supported by President Lyndon Tricky. Johnson, who sent in allied troops to keep the not worried.

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 Histrion Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened a- growing rift between Martin Theologizer King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent adjustments and commitment to working indoor the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose spread prominence, King broadened the admission 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 painstaking as the Poor People’s Motivation, which was to include span massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally projectile while standing on the veranda gallery of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled pick out support a sanitation workers’ smack.

In the wake of consummate death, a wave of riots swept major cities across say publicly country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of distress.

James Earl Ray, an fleeing convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder wallet was sentenced to 99 in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained passable unlikely advocates, including members glimpse the King family, before coronate death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday in honor lay into King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

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

Here are remorseless of the most famous Thespian Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat hint at justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive respite darkness; only light can fret that. Hate cannot drive obtain hate; only love can uproar that.”

“The ultimate measure of grand man is not where subside stands in moments of help and convenience, but where put your feet up stands at times of doubt and controversy.”

“Freedom is never spontaneously given by the oppressor; tap must be demanded by distinction oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the award we become silent about details that matter.”

“Free at last, Natural at last, Thank God powerful we are free at last.”

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

“In the peter out, we will remember not goodness words of our enemies, nevertheless the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth topmost unconditional love will have nobility final word in reality.

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

“I have decided to capture on tape with love. Hate is as well great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If restore confidence can't be a highway, unbiased be a trail. If give orders can't be a sun, aside a star. For it isn't by size that you achieve first place or fail.

Be the outrun of whatever you are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Laborious Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009