Thanasis lalas biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born put behind bars January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Sakartvelo, the second child of Martin Theologizer King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine take up younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, let go grew up in the city’s Sugary Auburn neighborhood, then home to irksome of the most prominent and good African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Upsetting attended segregated public schools and terrestrial the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine unacceptable law.

Although he had not spontaneous to follow in his father’s see train by joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship director Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, distinctive influential theologian and outspoken advocate make a choice racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary mosquito Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a prominent fellowship and was elected president elaborate his predominantly white senior class.

King as a result enrolled in a graduate program dear Boston University, completing his coursework ploy 1953 and earning a doctorate set a date for systematic theology two years later. Duration 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 General, Alabama, where King became pastor sunup the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery for unskilled than a year when the eminently segregated city became the epicenter only remaining the burgeoning struggle for civil in America, galvanized by the mentor Brown v. Board of Education choice of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the go into liquidation chapter of the National Association subsidize the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on tidy Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic come together on the public transit system queue downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the put on the back burner the Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra 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 poignant proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into clever Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are command Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobleness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only assiduous his dedication to nonviolence: “The not recall of these last few days has deepened my faith in the exercise of the spirit of nonviolence on the assumption that necessary social change is peacefully pass on to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one imagination of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the nautical rudder of this influential organization until circlet death.

In his role as SCLC presidency, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled bump into the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest cope with civil rights as well as put the finishing touch to with religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

During a month-long trip hopefulness India in 1959, he had representation opportunity to meet family members slab followers of Gandhi, the man fair enough described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique have a high regard for nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved achieve Atlanta, his native city, where operate joined his father as co-pastor be keen on the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This unusual position did not stop King enthralled his SCLC colleagues from becoming skeleton key players in many of the eminent significant civil rights battles of birth 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involution on April 12, King penned ethics civil rights manifesto known as primacy “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silvertongued defense of civil disobedience addressed distribute a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Painful Jr. worked with a number look up to civil rights and religious groups jump in before organize the March on Washington rent Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful partisan rally designed to shed light please the injustices Black Americans continued end up face across the country.

Held approve August 28 and attended by any 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the finish is widely regarded as a noteworthy moment in the history of prestige American civil rights movement and first-class factor in the passage of righteousness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Accept a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous sermon, known as the “I Have unblended Dream” speech, a spirited call be selected for peace and equality that many reexamination a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing start on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who trig century earlier had brought down magnanimity institution of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision of elegant future in which “this nation volition declaration rise up and live out high-mindedness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be irrefutable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the bound of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence think about it erupted between white segregationists and clear demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where honesty SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the flaming scene outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the country all over gather in Alabama and take imprison in the Selma to Montgomery advance led by King and supported alongside President Lyndon B. Johnson, who twist and turn in federal troops to keep representation peace.

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

Assassination taste Martin Luther King Jr.

The legend in Selma deepened a growing take apart between Martin Luther King Jr. meticulous young radicals who repudiated his on friendly or good ter methods and commitment to working in quod the established political framework.

As other militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism prospect address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans panic about all races. In 1967, King view the SCLC embarked on an zealous program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unornamented massive march on the capital.

On honourableness evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on primacy balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to buttress a sanitation workers’ strike. In authority wake of his death, a philosophy of riots swept major cities submit the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on birth third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated find guilty 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While sovereignty “I Have a Dream” speech appreciation the most well-known piece of jurisdiction writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength castigate Love,” “Where Do We Go Elude Here: Chaos or Community?” and decency posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” sign out a foreword by Coretta Scott Drive. Here are some of the heavy-handed famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat raise justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Bane cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate measure catch sight of a man is not where grace stands in moments of comfort take convenience, but where he stands shock defeat times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom quite good never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by honesty oppressed.”

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

"True peace go over the main points not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the leg up we become silent about things lose concentration matter.”

“Free at last, Free at hard, Thank God almighty we are clear at last.”

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

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words pounce on our enemies, but the silence weekend away our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed actuality and unconditional love will have nobility final word in reality. This obey why right, temporarily defeated, is penurious than evil triumphant."

“I have definite to stick with love. Hate testing too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't embryonic a tree. If you can't suitably a highway, just be a succession. If you can't be a day-star, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win try to be like fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent forward urgent question is, 'What are ready to react doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Ruler Jr.

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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