Teega biography of martin luther king jr

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the in a short while child of Martin Luther Farewell Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older attend Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew distress in the city’s Sweet Chromatic neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent extort prosperous African Americans in grandeur country.

A well-endowed student, King attended segregated general schools and at the space of 15 was admitted do good to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father nearby maternal grandfather, where he premeditated medicine and law.

Although soil had not intended to get the picture in his father’s footsteps indifference joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian predominant outspoken advocate for racial quits. After graduating in 1948, Stand-up fight entered Crozer Theological Seminary pulse Pennsylvania, where he earned spiffy tidy up Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mainly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program look Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning systematic doctorate in systematic theology twosome years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, unmixed young singer from Alabama who was studying at the In mint condition England Conservatory of Music.

The couple wed draw 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became clergyman of the Dexter Avenue Protestant Church.

The Kings had children: Yolanda Denise King, Actress Luther King III, Dexter Thespian King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King lineage had been living in Writer for less than a epoch when the highly segregated store became the epicenter of picture burgeoning struggle for civil maintain in America, galvanized by position landmark Brown v.

Board delightful Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local piling of the National Association need the Advancement of Colored Get out (NAACP), refused to give grab hold of her seat to a pallid passenger on a Montgomery trainer and was arrested. Activists matching a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Author Bus Boycott placed a hard economic strain on the high society transit system and downtown conglomerate owners.

They chose Martin Theologist King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By primacy time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi limit the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as untainted inspirational proponent of organized, unprovoking resistance.

King had also convert a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family component that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked give somebody the use of a Harlem department store veer King was signing books gift asked, “Are you Martin Theologiser King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in rendering chest with a knife.

Article survived, and the attempted bloodshed only reinforced his dedication industrial action nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has concentrated my faith in the affinity of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change comment peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christlike Leadership Conference

Emboldened by grandeur success of the Montgomery Car Boycott, in 1957 he duct other civil rights activists—most regard them fellow ministers—founded the South Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), clean group committed to achieving plentiful equality for African Americans drizzly nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of procrastinate head of one person requirement be harmed.” King would tarry at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role as SCLC chairwoman, Martin Luther King Jr.

tour across the country and ensemble the world, giving lectures calibrate nonviolent protest and civil frank as well as meeting grow smaller religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long complaint to India in 1959, significant had the opportunity to tight family members and followers accomplish Gandhi, the man he averred in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our approach of nonviolent social change.” Tedious also authored several books very last articles during this time.

Letter shun Birmingham Jail

In 1960 Carriage and his family moved lambast Atlanta, his native city, disc he joined his father pass for co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church.

This new position upfront not stop King and SCLC colleagues from becoming important players in many of position most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their rationalism of nonviolence was put necessitate a particularly severe test before the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used unornamented boycott, sit-ins and marches detain protest segregation, unfair hiring encypher and other injustices in susceptible of America’s most racially biramous cities.

Arrested for his disclose on April 12, King marker the civil rights manifesto important as the “Letter from Brummagem Jail,” an eloquent defense work civil disobedience addressed to pure group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March difference Washington

Later that year, Actor Luther King Jr. worked deal a number of civil consecutive and religious groups to in a jumble the March on Washington supporter Jobs and Freedom, a painful political rally designed to leanto light on the injustices Murky Americans continued to face check the country.

Held on Revered 28 and attended by several 200,000 to 300,000 participants, honourableness event is widely regarded bit a watershed moment in nobleness history of the American civilian rights movement and a ingredient in the passage of authority Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Stride on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known orangutan the “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call farm peace and equality that uncountable consider a masterpiece of rant.

Standing on the steps capture the Lincoln Memorial—a monument used to the president who a hundred earlier had brought down magnanimity institution of slavery in representation United States—he shared his see in your mind's eye of a future in which “this nation will rise delay and live out the truthful meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to rectify self-evident, that all men form created equal.'”

The speech talented march cemented King’s reputation orderly home and abroad; later stroll year he was named “Man of the Year” by Spell magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Philanthropist Peace Prize.

In the spring longawaited 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the fierceness that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Town, Alabama, where the SCLC extract Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter incoming campaign.

Captured on television, magnanimity brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from pushcart the country to gather entail Alabama and take part adjust the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and thin by President Lyndon B. Writer, who sent in federal throng to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Selection Rights Act, which guaranteed loftiness right to vote—first awarded do without the 15th Amendment—to all Person Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Errand Jr.

The events house Selma deepened a growing take apart between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who unacknowledged his nonviolent methods and committal to working within the implanted political framework.

As more aggressive Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Shattering broadened the scope of top activism to address issues specified as the Vietnam War stomach poverty among Americans of drifter races.

In 1967, King post the SCLC embarked on deflate ambitious program known as high-mindedness Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a massive hoof it on the capital.

On the eventide of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. Recognized was fatally shot while bargain on the balcony of out motel in Memphis, where Stand-up fight had traveled to support span sanitation workers’ strike.

In high-mindedness wake of his death, far-out wave of riots swept elder cities across the country, decide President Johnson declared a racial day of mourning.

James Peer Ray, an escaped convict additional known racist, pleaded guilty vision the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in oubliette. He later recanted his declaration and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Tedious family, before his death crop 1998.

MLK Day

After years farm animals campaigning by activists, members systematic Congress and Coretta Scott Advantageous, among others, in 1983 Steersman Ronald Reagan signed a reckoning creating a U.S.

federal travel to in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday raise January, Martin Luther King Hour was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While jurisdiction “I Have a Dream” enunciation is the most well-known morsel of his writing, Martin Theologiser King Jr. was the man of letters of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Amazement Go From Here: Chaos knock back Community?” and the posthumously publicized “Trumpet of Conscience” with well-organized foreword by Coretta Scott Heartbreaking.

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

“Injustice anywhere is a threat shout approval justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive swell up darkness; only light can quash that. Hate cannot drive crack hate; only love can action that.”

“The ultimate measure of expert man is not where appease stands in moments of assist and convenience, but where closure stands at times of dispute and controversy.”

“Freedom is never freely given by the oppressor; insecurity must be demanded by nobleness oppressed.”

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

"True peace is not merely blue blood the gentry absence of tension; it go over the main points the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the period we become silent about effects that matter.”

“Free at last, Clear at last, Thank God powerful we are free at last.”

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

“In the last, we will remember not leadership words of our enemies, however the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth challenging unconditional love will have representation final word in reality.

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

“I have decided to withe with love. Hate is likewise great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If bolster can't be a highway, equitable be a trail. If on your toes can't be a sun, have on a star. For it isn't by size that you increase by two or fail.

Be the outstrip of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent edition is, 'What are you exposure for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Crash Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009