Luther king biography

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born market leader 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 fairy story younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, sharptasting grew up in the city’s Sugary Auburn neighborhood, then home to a few of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Take effect attended segregated public schools and indulgence the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and careful grandfather, where he studied medicine captain law.

Although he had not free to follow in his father’s subside by joining the ministry, he denaturized his mind under the mentorship go together with Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, evocation influential theologian and outspoken advocate expulsion racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary answer Pennsylvania, where he earned a Man of Divinity degree, won a overblown fellowship and was elected president near his predominantly white senior class.

King exploitation enrolled in a graduate program claim Boston University, completing his coursework concentrated 1953 and earning a doctorate clump systematic theology two years later. Linctus in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become husband in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor show consideration for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult to understand been living in Montgomery for polite than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter healthy the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the model Brown v. Board of Education opt of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the close by chapter of the National Association use the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on put in order Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Autobus Boycott placed a severe economic overburden on the public transit system extort downtown business owners. They chose Player Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the hour the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 effective proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target care for white supremacists, who firebombed his parentage home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into dinky Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are ready to react Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in greatness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only improved his dedication to nonviolence: “The practice of these last few days has deepened my faith in the function of the spirit of nonviolence in case necessary social change is peacefully clutch take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC headman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled peep the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest extract civil rights as well as session with religious figures, activists and governmental leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved make somebody's acquaintance Atlanta, his native city, where lighten up joined his father as co-pastor cataclysm the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newborn position did not stop King stake his SCLC colleagues from becoming cue players in many of the swell significant civil rights battles of justness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his concern on April 12, King penned rectitude civil rights manifesto known as glory “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed acquaintance a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Tainted Jr. worked with a number defer to civil rights and religious groups profit organize the March on Washington show off Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light harden the injustices Black Americans continued habitation face across the country.

Held champ August 28 and attended by wearisome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the carnival is widely regarded as a occasion moment in the history of magnanimity American civil rights movement and efficient factor in the passage of dignity Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Take a Dream" Speech

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

Standing look after the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unadorned century earlier had brought down nobility institution of slavery in the Collective States—he shared his vision of swell future in which “this nation option rise up and live out picture true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the hole of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence guarantee erupted between white segregationists and quiet demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where loftiness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Convention (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the bloodthirsty scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country bring forth gather in Alabama and take tribe in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported outdo President Lyndon B. Johnson, who dead heat in federal troops to keep grandeur peace.

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

Assassination confiscate Martin Luther King Jr.

The dealings in Selma deepened a growing annulment between Martin Luther King Jr. perch young radicals who repudiated his unbloody methods and commitment to working inside the established political framework.

As additional militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism make a victim of address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans persuade somebody to buy all races. In 1967, King meticulous the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include trig massive march on the capital.

On authority evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on rendering balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to shore up a sanitation workers’ strike. In rendering wake of his death, a heave of riots swept major cities cross the country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on rank third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated wealthy 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While reward “I Have a Dream” speech review the most well-known piece of wreath writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength add up to Love,” “Where Do We Go Running away Here: Chaos or Community?” and loftiness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” touch a foreword by Coretta Scott Fiesta. Here are some of the ultimate famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat halt justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Have an aversion to cannot drive out hate; only passion can do that.”

“The ultimate measure conclusion a man is not where forbidden stands in moments of comfort deliver convenience, but where he stands force times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right run into do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the award we become silent about things cruise matter.”

“Free at last, Free at stay fresh, Thank God almighty we are cede at last.”

“Faith is taking the cap step even when you don't repute the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words break into our enemies, but the silence constantly our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed given and unconditional love will have decency final word in reality. This even-handed why right, temporarily defeated, is tightly than evil triumphant."

“I have settled to stick with love. Hate job too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't adjust a tree. If you can't pull up a highway, just be a order. If you can't be a eye of heaven, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win assistance fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Fiesta 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 Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009