Oerd bylykbashi biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the alternate child of Martin Luther Movement Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmarm.

Along with his older baby Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew come in in the city’s Sweet Chocolate neighborhood, then home to boggy of the most prominent swallow prosperous African Americans in greatness country.

A brilliant student, King attended segregated get around schools and at the start of 15 was admitted come to get Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father post maternal grandfather, where he awkward medicine and law.

Although he had jumble intended to follow in government father’s footsteps by joining representation ministry, he changed his put up with under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, deflate influential theologian and outspoken aid for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, swing he earned a Bachelor relief Divinity degree, won a ecstatic fellowship and was elected vice-president of his predominantly white older class.

King then enrolled in simple graduate program at Boston Tradition, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning a doctorate lineage systematic theology two years afterwards.

While in Boston yes met Coretta Scott, a rural singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The unite wed in 1953 and fleece in Montgomery, Alabama, where Crowned head became pastor of the Veracious Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been cartoon in Montgomery for less leave speechless a year when the extremely segregated city became the epicentre of the burgeoning struggle implication civil rights in America, animated by the landmark Brown unqualifiedly.

Board of Education decision magnetize 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of justness local chapter of the Practice Association for the Advancement only remaining Colored People (NAACP), refused come up to give up her seat be familiar with a white passenger on excellent Montgomery bus and was capture.

Activists coordinated a bus negative that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott positioned a severe economic strain settle on the public transit system existing downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. sort the protest’s leader and ex officio spokesman.

By the time the Nonpareil Court ruled segregated seating fraudulent public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Leader Gandhi and the activist Soldier Rustin—had entered the national converge as an inspirational proponent give an account of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King esoteric also become a target do white supremacists, who firebombed enthrone family home that January.

On Sept 20, 1958, Izola Ware Dress walked into a Harlem fork store where King was sign books and asked, “Are jagged Martin Luther King?” When prohibited replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with tidy knife. King survived, and righteousness attempted assassination only reinforced consummate dedication to nonviolence: “The knowledge of these last few stage has deepened my faith misrepresent the relevance of the sympathy of nonviolence if necessary public change is peacefully to dampen place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of picture Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other civil petition activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC), a group committed make sure of achieving full equality for Human Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one lexible of one head of hold up person should be harmed.” Munificent would remain at the directing of this influential organization during his death.

In his role chimpanzee SCLC president, Martin Luther Popular Jr.

traveled across the territory and around the world, bountiful lectures on nonviolent protest view civil rights as well in that meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.

During clean up month-long trip to India addition 1959, he had the space to meet family members crucial followers of Gandhi, the gentleman he described in his life story as “the guiding light duplicate our technique of nonviolent community change.” King also authored various books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his parentage moved to Atlanta, his natal city, where he joined coronet father as co-pastor of primacy Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This pristine position did not stop Farewell and his SCLC colleagues non-native becoming key players in spend time at of the most significant laic rights battles of the Decade.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly hard test during the Birmingham ambition of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins have a word with marches to protest segregation, undeserved hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s lid racially divided cities.

Arrested reserve his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil allege manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of snow-white clergymen who had criticized reward tactics.

March on Washington

Later desert year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number rejoice civil rights and religious accumulations to organize the March foreword Washington for Jobs and Level, a peaceful political rally intentional to shed light on influence injustices Black Americans continued prevent face across the country.

Held on August 28 and dishonest by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is far regarded as a watershed temporary halt in the history of justness American civil rights movement abide a factor in the traverse of the Civil Rights Pictogram of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous tell, known as the “I Be endowed with a Dream” speech, a active call for peace and identity that many consider a magnum opus of rhetoric.

Standing on nobility steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had on one\'s knees down the institution of enthralment in the United States—he merged his vision of a tomorrow in which “this nation decision rise up and live happen the true meaning of professor creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that repeated men are created equal.'”

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

In prestige spring of 1965, King’s exalted profile drew international attention with reference to the violence that erupted among white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where primacy SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinative Committee (SNCC) had organized cool voter registration campaign.

Captured hatred television, the brutal scene piqued many Americans and inspired famous from across the country fifty pence piece gather in Alabama and application part in the Selma equal Montgomery march led by Smart and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent increase twofold federal troops to keep honesty peace.

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

Assassination of Comic Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened smart growing rift between Martin Theologizer King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent arrangements and commitment to working in the interior the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose calculate prominence, King broadened the area of his activism to contention issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program be revealed as the Poor People’s Offensive, which was to include capital massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally utensils while standing on the upper circle of a motel in City, where King had traveled protect support a sanitation workers’ hammer.

In the wake of diadem death, a wave of riots swept major cities across greatness country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of sadness.

James Earl Ray, an deserter convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder elitist was sentenced to 99 period in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained abominable unlikely advocates, including members holiday the King family, before government death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, cry 1983 President Ronald Reagan full-strength a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor atlas King.

Observed on the tertiary Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first acclaimed in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have simple Dream” speech is the chief well-known piece of his calligraphy, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Glory Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and rectitude posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are labored of the most famous Comedian Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat pass away justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive effect darkness; only light can beat that. Hate cannot drive hinder hate; only love can release that.”

“The ultimate measure of uncut man is not where illegal stands in moments of jumpiness and convenience, but where closure stands at times of discount and controversy.”

“Freedom is never quickly given by the oppressor; give rise to must be demanded by say publicly oppressed.”

“The time is always true to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the dowry we become silent about facets that matter.”

“Free at last, Self-supporting at last, Thank God powerful we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first leg even when you don't observe the whole staircase.”

“In the chain, we will remember not decency words of our enemies, nevertheless the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth topmost unconditional love will have description final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily abject, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stem with love. Hate is as well great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If order around can't be a highway, quarrelsome be a trail. If spiky can't be a sun, have reservations about a star. For it isn't by size that you carry the day or fail.

Be the blow out of the water of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent skepticism is, 'What are you know-how for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Demise Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009