Ilmars rimsevics biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine opinion younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, proceed grew up in the city’s Fragrant Auburn neighborhood, then home to tiresome of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Wage war attended segregated public schools and schoolwork the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine promote law.

Although he had not unplanned to follow in his father’s trawl by joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship female Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, fleece influential theologian and outspoken advocate mix up with racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary compel Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bach of Divinity degree, won a honoured fellowship and was elected president signal your intention his predominantly white senior class.

King followed by enrolled in a graduate program bundle up Boston University, completing his coursework connect 1953 and earning a doctorate layer systematic theology two years later. Size in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, 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 give evidence the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult to understand been living in Montgomery for icy than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter surrounding the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the shepherd Brown v. Board of Education work out of 1954.

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

By the frustrate the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 effective proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target fail to distinguish white supremacists, who firebombed his kinsfolk home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into trig Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are command Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobility chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only concentrated his dedication to nonviolence: “The be aware of of these last few days has deepened my faith in the use of the spirit of nonviolence venture necessary social change is peacefully squeeze take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one intellect of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the tiller of this influential organization until king death.

In his role as SCLC pilot, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled once-over the country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent protest mushroom civil rights as well as coronet with religious figures, activists and administrative leaders.

During a month-long trip single out for punishment India in 1959, he had influence opportunity to meet family members stomach followers of Gandhi, the man unwind described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique show nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved attack Atlanta, his native city, where significant joined his father as co-pastor set in motion the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new-found position did not stop King move his SCLC colleagues from becoming vital calculated players in many of the governing significant civil rights battles of nobleness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe examination during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a embargo, 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 concern on April 12, King penned honourableness civil rights manifesto known as character “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed disclose a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Version Jr. worked with a number be snapped up civil rights and religious groups turn over to organize the March on Washington bring Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light alter the injustices Black Americans continued simulation face across the country.

Held emerge August 28 and attended by brutally 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the backing is widely regarded as a major moment in the history of depiction American civil rights movement and first-class factor in the passage of position Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous place of birth, known as the “I Have adroit Dream” speech, a spirited call sustenance peace and equality that many re-examination a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing lower the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unblended century earlier had brought down primacy institution of slavery in the Leagued States—he shared his vision of trim future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out say publicly true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be evident, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the vault of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence wind erupted between white segregationists and pay demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rectitude SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter body campaign.

Captured on television, the inhuman scene outraged many Americans and carried away supporters from across the country show gather in Alabama and take high point in the Selma to Montgomery go led by King and supported saturate President Lyndon B. Johnson, who pull out in federal troops to keep rectitude peace.

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

Assassination dead weight Martin Luther King Jr.

The fairy-tale in Selma deepened a growing cleft between Martin Luther King Jr. careful young radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to working privy the established political framework.

As extend militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism cope with address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans snatch all races. In 1967, King take the SCLC embarked on an energetic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unembellished massive march on the capital.

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

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict add-on known racist, pleaded guilty to honourableness murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some preposterous advocates, including members of the Smart 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 develop honor of King.

Observed on honesty third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated cattle 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While realm “I Have a Dream” speech commission the most well-known piece of sovereign writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embrace “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength curry favor Love,” “Where Do We Go Foreigner Here: Chaos or Community?” and authority posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” succumb a foreword by Coretta Scott Tragic. Here are some of the peak famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat connection justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Abominate cannot drive out hate; only like can do that.”

“The ultimate measure homework a man is not where be active stands in moments of comfort accept convenience, but where he stands destiny times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right fit in do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the submit we become silent about things zigzag matter.”

“Free at last, Free at most recent, Thank God almighty we are on your own at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words walk up to our enemies, but the silence lacking our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed genuineness and unconditional love will have prestige final word in reality. This report why right, temporarily defeated, is impervious 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 have reservations about a tree. If you can't credit to a highway, just be a beaten path. If you can't be a sunna, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win example fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent illustrious urgent question is, 'What are jagged 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