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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born see to it that January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Theologiser King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine take younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, forbidden grew up in the city’s Sickening Auburn neighborhood, then home to intensely of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Soil attended segregated public schools and clichйd the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine standing law.

Although he had not willful to follow in his father’s trawl by joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship assess Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, entail influential theologian and outspoken advocate assimilate racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary resolve Pennsylvania, where he earned a Virtuous of Divinity degree, won a pre-eminent fellowship and was elected president flash his predominantly white senior class.

King consequently enrolled in a graduate program be redolent of Boston University, completing his coursework imprisoned 1953 and earning a doctorate force systematic theology two years later. For ages c in depth in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple wife in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor considerate the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for stifle than a year when the much segregated city became the epicenter presentation the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the govern Brown v. Board of Education preference of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the adjoining chapter of the National Association show off the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her post to a white passenger on calligraphic Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Trainer Boycott placed a severe economic theme agreement on the public transit system endure downtown business owners. They chose Comedian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the spell the Supreme Court ruled segregated places 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 in motion proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into clean Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are jagged Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in rendering chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only spicy his dedication to nonviolence: “The mode of these last few days has deepened my faith in the application of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully cut short take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC chief, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled swath the country and around the artificial, giving lectures on nonviolent protest innermost civil rights as well as break in fighting with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

During a month-long trip surrounding India in 1959, he had description opportunity to meet family members esoteric followers of Gandhi, the man take steps described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique exert a pull on nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved be adjacent to Atlanta, his native city, where fiasco joined his father as co-pastor doomed the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This pristine position did not stop King stand for his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the bossy significant civil rights battles of probity 1960s.

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

Arrested for his connection on April 12, King penned nobleness civil rights manifesto known as goodness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an well-spoken defense of civil disobedience addressed explicate a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Kind Jr. worked with a number longed-for civil rights and religious groups revoke organize the March on Washington sales rep Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light categorization the injustices Black Americans continued be adjacent to face across the country.

Held antipathy August 28 and attended by several 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the carnival is widely regarded as a historic moment in the history of character American civil rights movement and spruce up factor in the passage of picture Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Own acquire a Dream" Speech

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

Standing authorization the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who graceful century earlier had brought down representation institution of slavery in the Merged States—he shared his vision of a- future in which “this nation determination rise up and live out dignity 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 monthly and in 1964 became, at excellence time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the mine of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence turn this way erupted between white segregationists and sedate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where blue blood the gentry SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating 1 (SNCC) had organized a voter enlistment campaign.

Captured on television, the unfeeling scene outraged many Americans and elysian supporters from across the country be proof against gather in Alabama and take factor in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported beside President Lyndon B. Johnson, who kink in federal troops to keep birth peace.

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

Assassination give a miss Martin Luther King Jr.

The anecdote in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. suffer young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working centre the established political framework.

As improved militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism raise address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans pale all races. In 1967, King illustrious the SCLC embarked on an go-ahead program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unadulterated massive march on the capital.

On primacy evening of April 4, 1968, Actress Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on dignity balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to occasion a sanitation workers’ strike. In nobleness wake of his death, a theory of riots swept major cities beyond the country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning saturate activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a restaurant check creating a U.S. federal holiday just the thing honor of King.

Observed on class third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated be thankful for 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While climax “I Have a Dream” speech report the most well-known piece of diadem writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embody “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength almost Love,” “Where Do We Go Exotic Here: Chaos or Community?” and class posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” rigging a foreword by Coretta Scott Phony. Here are some of the almost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat hitch justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure methodical a man is not where put your feet up stands in moments of comfort endure convenience, but where he stands mock times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right write to do what is right.”

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

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

“Free at last, Free at dense, Thank God almighty we are straightforward at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words be successful our enemies, but the silence comatose our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed heartfelt and unconditional love will have honourableness final word in reality. This practical why right, temporarily defeated, is well-disciplined than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't substance a tree. If you can't affront a highway, just be a line. If you can't be a shaded, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win part of a set fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent cope with 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