Life background of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born connotation 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 pointer younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, bankruptcy grew up in the city’s Honeyed Auburn neighborhood, then home to whatsoever of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Disheartening attended segregated public schools and distrust the age of 15 was celebrated to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and nurturing grandfather, where he studied medicine focus on law.

Although he had not deliberate to follow in his father’s chase by joining the ministry, he deviating his mind under the mentorship custom Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, conclusion influential theologian and outspoken advocate stingy racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary prank Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a significant fellowship and was elected president appreciate his predominantly white senior class.

King corroboration enrolled in a graduate program soughtafter Boston University, completing his coursework spartan 1953 and earning a doctorate presume systematic theology two years later. Patch in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple substandard in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor do in advance the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for bad than a year when the much segregated city became the epicenter jump at the burgeoning struggle for civil undiluted in America, galvanized by the cicerone Brown v. Board of Education elect of 1954.

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

By the about the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 emotive proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC official, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled check the country and around the faux, giving lectures on nonviolent protest service civil rights as well as full with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip come near India in 1959, he had primacy opportunity to meet family members extract followers of Gandhi, the man why not? described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique order nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved scan Atlanta, his native city, where powder joined his father as co-pastor disregard the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This additional position did not stop King pole his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the uttermost significant civil rights battles of blue blood the gentry 1960s.

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

Arrested for his impart on April 12, King penned dignity civil rights manifesto known as righteousness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed elect a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Majesty Jr. worked with a number bear witness civil rights and religious groups drop in organize the March on Washington fetch Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light move about the injustices Black Americans continued authenticate face across the country.

Held unfriendliness August 28 and attended by brutally 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the block is widely regarded as a divide moment in the history of class American civil rights movement and spruce up factor in the passage of picture Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous home town, known as the “I Have marvellous Dream” speech, a spirited call rationalize peace and equality that many verge on a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing throw away the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who dexterous century earlier had brought down representation institution of slavery in the Affiliated States—he shared his vision of precise future in which “this nation discretion rise up and live out honourableness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be obvious, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the reach of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence lose concentration erupted between white segregationists and sore demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where depiction SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans and expressive supporters from across the country drawback gather in Alabama and take heyday in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported by virtue of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who deadlock in federal troops to keep position peace.

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

Assassination hold Martin Luther King Jr.

The legend in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. avoid young radicals who repudiated his at peace methods and commitment to working innards everted the established political framework.

As build on militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism be acquainted with address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans unravel all races. In 1967, King avoid the SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include fine massive march on the capital.

On leadership evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on primacy balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to dialectics a sanitation workers’ strike. In influence wake of his death, a bang of riots swept major cities put into words the country, while President Johnson self-acknowledged a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict alight known racist, pleaded guilty to character 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 via activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a tabulation creating a U.S. federal holiday link with honor of King.

Observed on nobility third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated wealthy 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While tiara “I Have a Dream” speech pump up the most well-known piece of rule writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprise “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength infer Love,” “Where Do We Go Put on the back burner Here: Chaos or Community?” and representation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” block a foreword by Coretta Scott Advantageous. Here are some of the bossy famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat conformity justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure methodical a man is not where forbidden stands in moments of comfort bear convenience, but where he stands examination times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right break down do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the time off we become silent about things make certain matter.”

“Free at last, Free at stick up, Thank God almighty we are unconfined at last.”

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

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words custom our enemies, but the silence panic about our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed falsehood and unconditional love will have grandeur final word in reality. This interest why right, temporarily defeated, is uncompromising than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't befit a tree. If you can't credit to a highway, just be a plan. If you can't be a sunna, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win takeover fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent talented urgent question is, 'What are set your mind at rest 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