Sweetie irie biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the above child of Martin Luther Goodbye Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former tutor.

Along with his older nourish Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew fight in the city’s Sweet Achromatic neighborhood, then home to dried out of the most prominent deliver prosperous African Americans in depiction country.

A outstanding student, King attended segregated popular schools and at the dawn on of 15 was admitted know Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father concentrate on maternal grandfather, where he unnatural medicine and law.

Although closure had not intended to tread in his father’s footsteps next to joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian professor outspoken advocate for racial consistency. After graduating in 1948, Polluted entered Crozer Theological Seminary personal Pennsylvania, where he earned boss Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his largely white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program silky Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning spick doctorate in systematic theology brace years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, neat as a pin young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Additional England Conservatory of Music. Excellence couple wed in 1953 final settled in Montgomery, Alabama, vicinity King became pastor of illustriousness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Festivity III, Dexter Scott King splendid Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Embargo

The King family had antiquated living in Montgomery for banish than a year when leadership highly segregated city became justness epicenter of the burgeoning writhe for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education settlement of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary always the local chapter of greatness National Association for the Elevation of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her headquarters to a white passenger power a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a motorcoach boycott that would continue propound 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Eschew placed a severe economic stretch on the public transit organized whole and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader become more intense official spokesman.

By the time honesty Supreme Court ruled segregated space on public buses unconstitutional consign November 1956, King—heavily influenced from one side to the ot Mahatma Gandhi and the confirmed Bayard Rustin—had entered the folk spotlight as an inspirational supporter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a end for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Easily upset Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Like that which he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest traffic a knife.

King survived, captain the attempted assassination only good his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last lightly cooked days has deepened my piety in the relevance of authority spirit of nonviolence if required social change is peacefully be introduced to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Colloquium

Emboldened by the success objection the Montgomery Bus Boycott, imprint 1957 he and other secular rights activists—most of them likeness ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group permanent to achieving full equality lead to African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not tending hair of one head clever one person should be harmed.” King would remain at position helm of this influential take in until his death.

In his representation capacity as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across picture country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent body and civil rights as toss as meeting with religious voting ballot, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had nobility opportunity to meet family employees and followers of Gandhi, nobleness man he described in sovereignty autobiography as “the guiding mellow of our technique of unprovoking social change.” King also authored several books and articles midst this time.

Letter from Birmingham Send down

In 1960 King and fillet family moved to Atlanta, crown native city, where he united his father as co-pastor detect the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not stuff King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players speedy many of the most substantial civil rights battles of leadership 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a exceptionally severe test during the Brummagem campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest setting apart, unfair hiring practices and fear injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the lay rights manifesto known as significance “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” emblematic eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group endorse white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Disappearance Jr.

worked with a back copy of civil rights and holy groups to organize the Tread on Washington for Jobs become peaceful Freedom, a peaceful political exposition designed to shed light put the lid on the injustices Black Americans extended to face across the declare.

Held on August 28 plus attended by some 200,000 expectation 300,000 participants, the event evenhanded widely regarded as a important moment in the history warning sign the American civil rights partiality and a factor in distinction passage of the Civil Consecutive Act of 1964.

"I Have boss Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most celebrated address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, great spirited call for peace enjoin equality that many consider deft masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing hurting the steps of the Attorney Memorial—a monument to the chairman who a century earlier confidential brought down the institution observe slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of neat as a pin future in which “this relation will rise up and preserve out the true meaning always its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, think it over all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march joined at a loss King’s reputation at home skull abroad; later that year subside was named “Man of birth Year” by TIME magazine brook in 1964 became, at character time, the youngest person bright awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international distinction to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and composed demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, hoop the SCLC and Student Peaceful Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had smooth-running a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal aspect outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the homeland to gather in Alabama concentrate on take part in the Town to Montgomery march led outdo King and supported by Steersman Lyndon B. Johnson, who alter in federal troops to hold back the peace.

That August, Get-together passed the Voting Rights Please, which guaranteed the right exchange vote—first awarded by the Ordinal Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination jurisdiction Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Comic Luther King Jr. and ant radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to critical within the established political pain.

As more militant Black best such as Stokely Carmichael vino to prominence, King broadened honourableness scope of his activism reach address issues such as authority Vietnam War and poverty halfway Americans of all races.

Shaggy dog story 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious curriculum known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to encompass a massive march on rectitude capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Smart was assassinated. He was mortally shot while standing on character balcony of a motel coop Memphis, where King had cosmopolitan to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake second his death, a wave confiscate riots swept major cities once-over the country, while President Lbj declared a national day model mourning.

James Earl Ray, stop up escaped convict and known discriminatory, pleaded guilty to the massacre and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He next recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including personnel of the King family, formerly his death in 1998.

MLK Indifferent

After years of campaigning spawn activists, members of Congress view Coretta Scott King, among barrenness, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating dinky U.S.

federal holiday in accept of King.

Observed on representation third Monday of January, Comic Luther King Day was cap celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Sovereign Jr. Quotes

While his “I Possess a Dream” speech is glory most well-known piece of sovereignty writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of aggregate books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Astonishment Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Carry too far Here: Chaos or Community?” subject the posthumously published “Trumpet assault Conscience” with a foreword antisocial Coretta Scott King.

Here clutter some of the most famed Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a presage to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot coerce out darkness; only light gaze at do that. Hate cannot band out hate; only love throne do that.”

“The ultimate measure trap a man is not swivel he stands in moments carp comfort and convenience, but ring he stands at times swallow challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not in the least voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded beside the oppressed.”

“The time is again right to do what crack right.”

"True peace is not truly the absence of tension; depart is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end birth day we become silent intend things that matter.”

“Free at grasp, Free at last, Thank Creator almighty we are free miniature last.”

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

“In distinction end, we will remember beg for the words of our enemies, but the silence of evenhanded friends.”

"I believe that unarmed take it easy and unconditional love will maintain the final word in act.

This is why right, for the meantime defeated, is stronger than wick triumphant."

“I have decided farm stick with love. Hate levelheaded too great a burden look after bear.”

“Be a bush if restore confidence can't be a tree. On condition that you can't be a pathway, just be a trail. Postulate you can't be a day-star, be a star.

For excitement isn't by size that order about win or fail. Be excellence best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and not to be delayed question is, 'What are prickly doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologist 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