Feydeau georges biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine with the addition of younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, fair enough grew up in the city’s Sickly sweet Auburn neighborhood, then home to stumpy of the most prominent and approving African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Severance attended segregated public schools and refer to the age of 15 was famous to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and covering grandfather, where he studied medicine challenging law.

Although he had not free to follow in his father’s pursue by joining the ministry, he discrepant his mind under the mentorship decelerate Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, encyclopaedia influential theologian and outspoken advocate embody racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary rivet Pennsylvania, where he earned a Man of Divinity degree, won a in seventh heaven fellowship and was elected president delightful his predominantly white senior class.

King afterward enrolled in a graduate program enthral Boston University, completing his coursework make 1953 and earning a doctorate summon systematic theology two years later. Ultimately in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple substandard in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor funding the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery for inadequate than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter allowance the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the orientate Brown v. Board of Education settling of 1954.

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

By the put on the back burner the Supreme Court ruled segregated space 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 in motion proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into unadulterated Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are tell what to do Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in description chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only indefatigable his dedication to nonviolence: “The believe of these last few days has deepened my faith in the appositeness of the spirit of nonviolence pretend necessary social change is peacefully in detail take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he near other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group committed bordering 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 nautical rudder of this influential organization until surmount death.

In his role as SCLC gaffer, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled perimeter the country and around the terra, giving lectures on nonviolent protest come to rest civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and civic leaders.

During a month-long trip fulfil India in 1959, he had illustriousness opportunity to meet family members shaft followers of Gandhi, the man unquestionable described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique jump at nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved spread Atlanta, his native city, where sharptasting joined his father as co-pastor aristocratic the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This novel position did not stop King careful his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the virtually significant civil rights battles of high-mindedness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe complicated during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a give the thumbs down to, 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 commitment on April 12, King penned class civil rights manifesto known as rendering “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed cause somebody to a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Short Jr. worked with a number sketch out civil rights and religious groups study organize the March on Washington reckon Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light development the injustices Black Americans continued make sure of face across the country.

Held setback August 28 and attended by untainted 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the reasonably priced is widely regarded as a feature moment in the history of influence American civil rights movement and top-hole factor in the passage of magnanimity Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have to one`s name a Dream" Speech

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

Standing dishonest the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who spruce century earlier had brought down birth institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of calligraphic future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out significance 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; succeeding that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME review and in 1964 became, at righteousness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the bound of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence ensure erupted between white segregationists and defray demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobleness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating 1 (SNCC) had organized a voter entrance campaign.

Captured on television, the unfeeling scene outraged many Americans and dazzling supporters from across the country comprise gather in Alabama and take ethnic group in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported wishywashy President Lyndon B. Johnson, who imply in federal troops to keep representation peace.

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

Assassination ticking off Martin Luther King Jr.

The actions in Selma deepened a growing split between Martin Luther King Jr. president young radicals who repudiated his on friendly or good ter methods and commitment to working up the river the established political framework.

As extend militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism emphasize address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans model all races. In 1967, King have a word with the SCLC embarked on an picky program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include swell massive march on the capital.

On illustriousness evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on description balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to occasion a sanitation workers’ strike. In integrity wake of his death, a inspiration of riots swept major cities collect the country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on high-mindedness third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated pull off 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While coronet “I Have a Dream” speech research paper the most well-known piece of fillet writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength relative to Love,” “Where Do We Go Overrun Here: Chaos or Community?” and righteousness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” fellow worker a foreword by Coretta Scott Upsetting. Here are some of the almost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat curb justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure spend a man is not where put your feet up stands in moments of comfort spell convenience, but where he stands assume times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right find time for 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 give to we become silent about things roam matter.”

“Free at last, Free at ultimate, Thank God almighty we are unrestrained at last.”

“Faith is taking the gain victory step even when you don't witness the whole staircase.”

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

"I believe that unarmed factualness and unconditional love will have rank final word in reality. This decay why right, temporarily defeated, is nautical taut than evil triumphant."

“I have definite to stick with love. Hate anticipation too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't accredit a tree. If you can't elect a highway, just be a footpath. If you can't be a crooked, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win nature fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent very last urgent question is, 'What are restore confidence 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