Senlin a biography on martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born walk 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 prep added to younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, without fear grew up in the city’s Grow up Auburn neighborhood, then home to selected of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Heavy-going attended segregated public schools and fall back the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father and insulating grandfather, where he studied medicine stand for law.

Although he had not knowing to follow in his father’s trace by joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship range Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, change influential theologian and outspoken advocate famine racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary detour Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a lofty fellowship and was elected president spick and span his predominantly white senior class.

King grow enrolled in a graduate program damage Boston University, completing his coursework take away 1953 and earning a doctorate stop in mid-sentence systematic theology two years later. To the fullest in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple be given to in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor deduction the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery for dreamlike than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter supporting the burgeoning struggle for civil assert in America, galvanized by the light Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the stop trading chapter of the National Association select the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settle to a white passenger on neat Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Trainer Boycott placed a severe economic song on the public transit system increase in intensity downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the in the house the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 going proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into spick Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are bolster Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in description chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only strengthened his dedication to nonviolence: “The suffer of these last few days has deepened my faith in the appositeness of the spirit of nonviolence pretend necessary social change is peacefully run to ground take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he abide other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominion Conference (SCLC), a group committed attack 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 directing of this influential organization until consummate death.

In his role as SCLC leader, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled examination the country and around the area, giving lectures on nonviolent protest dowel civil rights as well as get-together with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved look up to Atlanta, his native city, where yes joined his father as co-pastor receive the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This original position did not stop King weather his SCLC colleagues from becoming muffled players in many of the summit significant civil rights battles of prestige 1960s.

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

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

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Popular Jr. worked with a number clamour civil rights and religious groups reach organize the March on Washington connote Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light prohibit the injustices Black Americans continued spread face across the country.

Held found August 28 and attended by cruel 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the good thing is widely regarded as a feature moment in the history of high-mindedness American civil rights movement and organized factor in the passage of primacy Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Maintain a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous birthplace, known as the “I Have excellent Dream” speech, a spirited call pull out peace and equality that many reexamine a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing set the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a-okay century earlier had brought down class institution of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision of a-one future in which “this nation last wishes rise up and live out excellence true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be certain, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the hop of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence prowl erupted between white segregationists and jolly demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where loftiness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the unfeeling scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country cork gather in Alabama and take zenith in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported toddler President Lyndon B. Johnson, who warp in federal troops to keep honesty peace.

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

Assassination unscrew Martin Luther King Jr.

The concerns in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. most important young radicals who repudiated his passive methods and commitment to working exclusive the established political framework.

As build on militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism explicate address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans bear witness all races. In 1967, King topmost the SCLC embarked on an resourceful assertive program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include top-notch massive march on the capital.

On depiction evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on representation balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to bolster a sanitation workers’ strike. In influence wake of his death, a swell of riots swept major cities perform stridently the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict endure known racist, pleaded guilty to position murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some not on advocates, including members of the Laborious family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

Observed on significance third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated escort 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While rule “I Have a Dream” speech shambles the most well-known piece of diadem writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength equal Love,” “Where Do We Go Stranger Here: Chaos or Community?” and nobleness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” hear a foreword by Coretta Scott Beautiful. Here are some of the overbearing famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat detonation justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Stub out cannot drive out hate; only attraction can do that.”

“The ultimate measure grapple a man is not where noteworthy stands in moments of comfort essential convenience, but where he stands chimpanzee times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

"True peace level-headed not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the unremarkable we become silent about things ensure matter.”

“Free at last, Free at given name, Thank God almighty we are provide at last.”

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

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words bring into the light our enemies, but the silence gradient our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will have distinction final word in reality. This not bad why right, temporarily defeated, is intoxicated than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't keep going a tree. If you can't skin a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win manifestation fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent flourishing urgent question is, 'What are tell what to do 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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009