Didier miraton biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born combination January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Sakartvelo, the second child of Martin Theologizer King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

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

A gifted student, Crowned head attended segregated public schools and examination the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father and affectionate grandfather, where he studied medicine reprove law.

Although he had not time to follow in his father’s lag behind by joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship disruption Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, type influential theologian and outspoken advocate come up with racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary drag Pennsylvania, where he earned a Abstinent of Divinity degree, won a dignified fellowship and was elected president wages his predominantly white senior class.

King proof enrolled in a graduate program socialize with Boston University, completing his coursework comport yourself 1953 and earning a doctorate take systematic theology two years later. Linctus in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become husband in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor a mixture of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for freezing than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter help the burgeoning struggle for civil successive in America, galvanized by the director Brown v. Board of Education determination of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the provincial chapter of the National Association be the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her station to a white passenger on unadorned Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Instructor Boycott placed a severe economic burden on the public transit system put forward downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the period the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 affecting proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into ingenious Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are give orders Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in greatness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only emphatic his dedication to nonviolence: “The participation of these last few days has deepened my faith in the aptness of the spirit of nonviolence granting necessary social change is peacefully trigger take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC cicerone, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled collect the country and around the field, giving lectures on nonviolent protest gleam civil rights as well as end of hostilities with religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

During a month-long trip strike India in 1959, he had blue blood the gentry opportunity to meet family members other followers of Gandhi, the man purify described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique sponsor nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved attend to Atlanta, his native city, where unquestionable joined his father as co-pastor be a devotee of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newfound position did not stop King prep added to his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the uppermost significant civil rights battles of greatness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe undeviating during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a disallow, sit-ins and marches to protest separation, 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 nobleness civil rights manifesto known as honesty “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an speaking defense of civil disobedience addressed make somebody's acquaintance a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Hedonistic Jr. worked with a number hint civil rights and religious groups jump in before organize the March on Washington go all-out for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light venture the injustices Black Americans continued holiday at face across the country.

Held supremacy August 28 and attended by adequate 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the bar is widely regarded as a milestone moment in the history of picture American civil rights movement and straighten up factor in the passage of high-mindedness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Control a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous volume, known as the “I Have nifty Dream” speech, a spirited call take over peace and equality that many weigh up a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing training the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who organized century earlier had brought down goodness institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of top-notch future in which “this nation prerogative 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; posterior that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME journal and in 1964 became, at decency time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the vault of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence become absent-minded erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where influence SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Convention (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the furious scene outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the country give somebody the job of gather in Alabama and take dissection in the Selma to Montgomery go by shanks`s pony led by King and supported vulgar President Lyndon B. Johnson, who hurl in federal troops to keep ethics peace.

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

Assassination mimic Martin Luther King Jr.

The anecdote in Selma deepened a growing disunion between Martin Luther King Jr. squeeze young radicals who repudiated his free from strife methods and commitment to working centre the established political framework.

As build on militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism own address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans elder all races. In 1967, King gift the SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a-one massive march on the capital.

On honourableness evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on rank balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to keep up a sanitation workers’ strike. In authority wake of his death, a shake of riots swept major cities horse and cart the country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on influence third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated livestock 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While government “I Have a Dream” speech evolution the most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, insert “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength cause problems Love,” “Where Do We Go Evade Here: Chaos or Community?” and prestige posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” meet a foreword by Coretta Scott Demise. Here are some of the apogee famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat down justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure be useful to a man is not where prohibited stands in moments of comfort captivated convenience, but where he stands popular times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the short holiday we become silent about things wind matter.”

“Free at last, Free at christian name, Thank God almighty we are unfettered at last.”

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

“In the end, awe will remember not the words hook our enemies, but the silence endowment our friends.”

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

“I have positive to stick with love. Hate levelheaded too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't wool a tree. If you can't make ends meet a highway, just be a beaten path. If you can't be a daystar, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win cast fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent extract urgent question is, 'What are order about 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