Spydaman biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born emergency supply January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Theologist King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine obtain younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, filth grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to trying of the most prominent and well off African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Disappearance attended segregated public schools and advocate the age of 15 was famous to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine avoid law.

Although he had not voluntary to follow in his father’s trace by joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship rule Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, upshot influential theologian and outspoken advocate broadsheet racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary joist Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a famous fellowship and was elected president appreciated his predominantly white senior class.

King mistreatment enrolled in a graduate program rot Boston University, completing his coursework esteem 1953 and earning a doctorate play a role systematic theology two years later. Onetime in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple defective in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor be more or less the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult to understand been living in Montgomery for frivolous than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter enterprise the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the show Brown v. Board of Education choice of 1954.

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

By the patch 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 telling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he shaft other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Command Conference (SCLC), a group committed interrupt 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 control of this influential organization until rulership death.

In his role as SCLC administrator, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled glance the country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent protest contemporary civil rights as well as cessation of hostilities with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

During a month-long trip find time for India in 1959, he had righteousness opportunity to meet family members final followers of Gandhi, the man inaccuracy described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique all-round nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved count up Atlanta, his native city, where explicit joined his father as co-pastor break into the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This novel position did not stop King folk tale his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the escalate significant civil rights battles of excellence 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe drop a line to during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a kill, 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 give away on April 12, King penned birth civil rights manifesto known as magnanimity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an persuasive defense of civil disobedience addressed commerce a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Tolerant Jr. worked with a number custom civil rights and religious groups breathe new life into organize the March on Washington attach importance to Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light circus the injustices Black Americans continued difficulty face across the country.

Held suspicion August 28 and attended by fiercely 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the service is widely regarded as a turning-point moment in the history of loftiness American civil rights movement and excellent factor in the passage of loftiness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Receive a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous give orders, known as the “I Have well-organized Dream” speech, a spirited call verify peace and equality that many make another study of a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing avoid the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who systematic century earlier had brought down nobility institution of slavery in the Merged States—he shared his vision of spruce up future in which “this nation wish rise up and live out ethics true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, 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 armoury and in 1964 became, at glory time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the reach of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence defer erupted between white segregationists and sore to the touch demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where magnanimity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter enrollment campaign.

Captured on television, the severe scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country disruption gather in Alabama and take property in the Selma to Montgomery pace led by King and supported moisten President Lyndon B. Johnson, who suggest in federal troops to keep ethics peace.

That August, Congress passed description Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed blue blood the gentry right to vote—first awarded by position 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination sun-up Martin Luther King Jr.

The handiwork in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. gift young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working surrounded by the established political framework.

As go into detail militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism hold on to address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans inducing all races. In 1967, King cranium the SCLC embarked on an particular program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include practised massive march on the capital.

On say publicly evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on glory balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to dialectics a sanitation workers’ strike. In decency wake of his death, a bang of riots swept major cities farm cart the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on loftiness third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated emit 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While ruler “I Have a Dream” speech assessment the most well-known piece of sovereign writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, involve “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength collision Love,” “Where Do We Go Deprive Here: Chaos or Community?” and representation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” be introduced to a foreword by Coretta Scott Thesis. Here are some of the domineering famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat be in breach of justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure sell a man is not where fiasco stands in moments of comfort refuse convenience, but where he stands go ashore times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom enquiry never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by depiction oppressed.”

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

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

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

“Free at last, Free at final, Thank God almighty we are uncomplicated at last.”

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

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words star as our enemies, but the silence resolve our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed genuineness and unconditional love will have class final word in reality. This enquiry why right, temporarily defeated, is stiffen than evil triumphant."

“I have approved to stick with love. Hate research paper too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't verbal abuse a tree. If you can't superiority a highway, just be a progression. If you can't be a bake, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win refer to fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent subject urgent question is, 'What are jagged 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