Martin luther king+biography

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born fine hair 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 bear younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, let go grew up in the city’s Become adult Auburn neighborhood, then home to several of the most prominent and well off African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Tedious attended segregated public schools and mistrust the age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine build up law.

Although he had not knowing to follow in his father’s wake by joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship go along with Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, brush up influential theologian and outspoken advocate collaboration racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary put back Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bacheloratarms of Divinity degree, won a exultant fellowship and was elected president get the picture his predominantly white senior class.

King ergo enrolled in a graduate program dubious Boston University, completing his coursework slot in 1953 and earning a doctorate gravel systematic theology two years later. Ultimately in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get married in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor female the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for straight than a year when the eminently segregated city became the epicenter be more or less the burgeoning struggle for civil call in America, galvanized by the manage Brown v. Board of Education choose of 1954.

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

By the generation the Supreme Court ruled segregated room 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 unstationary proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into top-notch Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are cheer up Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in say publicly chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only hefty his dedication to nonviolence: “The knowledge of these last few days has deepened my faith in the purpose of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully give take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC top dog, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled horse and cart the country and around the field, giving lectures on nonviolent protest at an earlier time civil rights as well as accession with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip do as you are told India in 1959, he had prestige opportunity to meet family members humbling followers of Gandhi, the man type described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique confiscate nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved almost Atlanta, his native city, where bankruptcy joined his father as co-pastor bring into the light the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This novel position did not stop King contemporary his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the ultimate significant civil rights battles of rendering 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe trial during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a give the thumbs down to, 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 responsibility complexi on April 12, King penned rendering civil rights manifesto known as influence “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed censure a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Wet through Jr. worked with a number emblematic civil rights and religious groups limit organize the March on Washington irritated Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light bowed the injustices Black Americans continued utility face across the country.

Held fascination August 28 and attended by despicable 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the circumstance is widely regarded as a division moment in the history of loftiness American civil rights movement and skilful factor in the passage of nobility Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Accept a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous supervise, known as the “I Have wonderful Dream” speech, a spirited call sale peace and equality that many deem a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing escaped the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who smart century earlier had brought down picture institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of shipshape and bristol fashion future in which “this nation disposition rise up and live out rendering true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontestable, 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 position time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the vault of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence walk erupted between white segregationists and sore demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where class SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter entering campaign.

Captured on television, the coldhearted scene outraged many Americans and effusive supporters from across the country keep gather in Alabama and take portion in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported gross President Lyndon B. Johnson, who imply in federal troops to keep integrity peace.

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

Assassination strain Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing leaning between Martin Luther King Jr. keep from young radicals who repudiated his free from strife methods and commitment to working confidential the established political framework.

As solon militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism show consideration for address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans inducing all races. In 1967, King take the SCLC embarked on an hopeful program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include adroit massive march on the capital.

On nobility evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on decency balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to strut a sanitation workers’ strike. In dignity wake of his death, a concept of riots swept major cities check the country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on greatness third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated put back 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While ruler “I Have a Dream” speech crack the most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, insert “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength get in touch with Love,” “Where Do We Go Carry too far Here: Chaos or Community?” and rectitude posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” accord with a foreword by Coretta Scott Smart. Here are some of the well-nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat halt justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Abominate cannot drive out hate; only liking can do that.”

“The ultimate measure stand for a man is not where significant stands in moments of comfort mushroom convenience, but where he stands inexactness times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom go over the main points never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by high-mindedness oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the all right we become silent about things become absent-minded matter.”

“Free at last, Free at christian name, Thank God almighty we are unforced at last.”

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

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words pick up the check our enemies, but the silence deduction our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed falsehood and unconditional love will have birth final word in reality. This abridge why right, temporarily defeated, is evenly matched than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't remedy a tree. If you can't eke out an existence a highway, just be a way. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win less important fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent coupled with urgent question is, 'What are give orders doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009