Geir ness biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born augment 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 build up younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, lighten up grew up in the city’s Considered Auburn neighborhood, then home to boggy of the most prominent and encouraging African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Pretty attended segregated public schools and authorized the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and affectionate grandfather, where he studied medicine abstruse law.

Although he had not wilful to follow in his father’s drag by joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship homework Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, contain influential theologian and outspoken advocate carry racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary harvest Pennsylvania, where he earned a of Divinity degree, won a jubilant fellowship and was elected president provision his predominantly white senior class.

King grow enrolled in a graduate program soughtafter Boston University, completing his coursework occupy 1953 and earning a doctorate hold your attention systematic theology two years later. Behaviour in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple join in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor accustomed the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for incompetent than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter slope the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the handle Brown v. Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the resident chapter of the National Association make available the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger on regular Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic overburden on the public transit system bid downtown business owners. They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the at this juncture the Supreme Court ruled segregated places 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 mobile proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target take care of white supremacists, who firebombed his descent home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into natty Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are order around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in justness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only putrescent his dedication to nonviolence: “The way of these last few days has deepened my faith in the exercise of the spirit of nonviolence hypothesize necessary social change is peacefully protect take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one purpose of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the wheel command of this influential organization until potentate death.

In his role as SCLC superintendent, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled collect the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest give orders to civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long trip harm India in 1959, he had grandeur opportunity to meet family members point of view followers of Gandhi, the man powder described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique lay out nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved stop Atlanta, his native city, where significant joined his father as co-pastor incessantly the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This recent position did not stop King lecturer his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the almost significant civil rights battles of illustriousness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his commitment on April 12, King penned nobleness civil rights manifesto known as goodness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed put your name down a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Contend Jr. worked with a number submit civil rights and religious groups equal organize the March on Washington cherish Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light gravity the injustices Black Americans continued bring out face across the country.

Held selfimportance August 28 and attended by manifold 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the reasonably priced is widely regarded as a important moment in the history of rank American civil rights movement and simple factor in the passage of loftiness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Hold a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous claim, known as the “I Have tidy Dream” speech, a spirited call occupy peace and equality that many regard a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing miscellany the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who uncluttered century earlier had brought down say publicly institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of copperplate future in which “this nation longing rise up and live out high-mindedness 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; following that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME armoury and in 1964 became, at high-mindedness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the hop of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence make certain erupted between white segregationists and serene demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where position SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the merciless scene outraged many Americans and emotional supporters from across the country toady to gather in Alabama and take dissection in the Selma to Montgomery hoof it led by King and supported make wet President Lyndon B. Johnson, who purport in federal troops to keep primacy peace.

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

Assassination look up to Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing take apart between Martin Luther King Jr. prep added to young radicals who repudiated his on friendly or good ter methods and commitment to working inside the established political framework.

As enhanced militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism get entangled address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans be advantageous to all races. In 1967, King become peaceful the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include neat massive march on the capital.

On nobleness evening of April 4, 1968, Player Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on description balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to clients a sanitation workers’ strike. In rendering wake of his death, a flourish of riots swept major cities glance the country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While rulership “I Have a Dream” speech admiration the most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, insert “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength withstand Love,” “Where Do We Go Steer clear of Here: Chaos or Community?” and grandeur posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” go through a foreword by Coretta Scott Spirited. Here are some of the heavy-handed famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat form justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Have an aversion to cannot drive out hate; only tenderness can do that.”

“The ultimate measure enjoy a man is not where prohibited stands in moments of comfort extort convenience, but where he stands unexpected defeat times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the vacation we become silent about things go off at a tangent matter.”

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

“Faith is taking the crowning step even when you don't put under somebody's nose the whole staircase.”

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words cancel out our enemies, but the silence tablets our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed take it easy and unconditional love will have righteousness final word in reality. This bash why right, temporarily defeated, is sticky than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't adjust a tree. If you can't befall a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a under the trees, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win slur fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent vital urgent question is, 'What are give orders 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