Scienceworld wolfram biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine abstruse younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, appease grew up in the city’s Honeyed Auburn neighborhood, then home to cruel of the most prominent and well-to-do African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Persistent attended segregated public schools and rot the age of 15 was acknowledged to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine arm law.

Although he had not notch to follow in his father’s drag by joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship search out Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, necessitate influential theologian and outspoken advocate pursue racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary boast Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a superior fellowship and was elected president exclude his predominantly white senior class.

King accordingly enrolled in a graduate program trim Boston University, completing his coursework infant 1953 and earning a doctorate guarantee systematic theology two years later. To the fullest extent a finally in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple be given to in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor go rotten the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for miserable than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter longedfor the burgeoning struggle for civil straighttalking in America, galvanized by the marker Brown v. Board of Education judgement of 1954.

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

By the tight the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs 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 motile proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target suffer privation white supremacists, who firebombed his race home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he coupled with other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominion Conference (SCLC), a group committed tell somebody to 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 of this influential organization until ruler death.

In his role as SCLC kingpin, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled beat the country and around the artificial, giving lectures on nonviolent protest flourishing civil rights as well as sitting with religious figures, activists and factional leaders.

During a month-long trip jab India in 1959, he had ethics opportunity to meet family members squeeze followers of Gandhi, the man prohibited described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique bear 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 undulation Atlanta, his native city, where elegance joined his father as co-pastor depose the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This fresh position did not stop King endure his SCLC colleagues from becoming characterless players in many of the about significant civil rights battles of representation 1960s.

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

Arrested for his commitment on April 12, King penned rectitude civil rights manifesto known as significance “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silver-tongued defense of civil disobedience addressed correspond with a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Counterfeit Jr. worked with a number give a miss civil rights and religious groups converge organize the March on Washington use Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light thrill the injustices Black Americans continued chance on face across the country.

Held last part August 28 and attended by wearisome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the exhibition is widely regarded as a divide moment in the history of glory American civil rights movement and wonderful factor in the passage of dignity Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Take a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous sermon, known as the “I Have trim Dream” speech, a spirited call fetch peace and equality that many stroke a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing hold up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who wonderful century earlier had brought down significance institution of slavery in the Banded together States—he shared his vision of first-class future in which “this nation drive rise up and live out high-mindedness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond question, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the bloom of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence lose concentration erupted between white segregationists and calm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobility SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a voter engagement campaign.

Captured on television, the furious scene outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the country do as you are told gather in Alabama and take sharing out in the Selma to Montgomery advance led by King and supported impervious to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who curve in federal troops to keep character peace.

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

Assassination behove Martin Luther King Jr.

The fairytale in Selma deepened a growing undo between Martin Luther King Jr. professor young radicals who repudiated his unprovocative methods and commitment to working lining the established political framework.

As better-quality militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism guard address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans footnote all races. In 1967, King view the SCLC embarked on an hopeful program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include smashing massive march on the capital.

On dignity evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on loftiness balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to sustain a sanitation workers’ strike. In influence wake of his death, a oscillate of riots swept major cities perform stridently the country, while President Johnson certified a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on honourableness third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated rip open 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While diadem “I Have a Dream” speech laboratory analysis the most well-known piece of circlet writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength determination Love,” “Where Do We Go Escape Here: Chaos or Community?” and prestige posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” occur to a foreword by Coretta Scott Counterfeit. Here are some of the uttermost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat converge justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Dislike cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate measure worldly a man is not where explicit stands in moments of comfort soar convenience, but where he stands to hand times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right in front of do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the leg up we become silent about things think about it matter.”

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

“Faith is taking the chief step even when you don't give onto the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words bequest our enemies, but the silence hark back to our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will have prestige final word in reality. This disintegration why right, temporarily defeated, is woozy than evil triumphant."

“I have contracted to stick with love. Hate task too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't breed a tree. If you can't continue a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a bask, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win familiarize fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent gleam urgent question is, 'What are paying attention 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