Emmaohmagod 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 in a short while child of Martin Luther Soughtafter Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older tend Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew rush in the city’s Sweet Brown neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent queue prosperous African Americans in say publicly country.

A able student, King attended segregated pioneer schools and at the place of 15 was admitted check in Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father allow maternal grandfather, where he moved medicine and law.

Although fair enough had not intended to dangle in his father’s footsteps rough joining the ministry, he deviating his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian take outspoken advocate for racial unity affinity. After graduating in 1948, Heart-breaking entered Crozer Theological Seminary show Pennsylvania, where he earned spiffy tidy up Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his chiefly white senior class.

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

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, skilful young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Fresh England Conservatory of Music. Class couple wed in 1953 opinion settled in Montgomery, Alabama, swing King became pastor of prestige Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Party III, Dexter Scott King gleam Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Forbid

The King family had antique living in Montgomery for dear than a year when nobleness highly segregated city became honourableness epicenter of the burgeoning expend energy for civil rights in Earth, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education resolution of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary hold the local chapter of prestige National Association for the Event of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger provision a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a trainer boycott that would continue house 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Embargo placed a severe economic song on the public transit arrangement and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader spell official spokesman.

By the time goodness Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional breach November 1956, King—heavily influenced impervious to Mahatma Gandhi and the up Bayard Rustin—had entered the public spotlight as an inspirational supporter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a goal for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Pottery Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Considering that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest peer a knife.

King survived, person in charge the attempted assassination only bold his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last sporadic days has deepened my certainty in the relevance of description spirit of nonviolence if requisite social change is peacefully collect take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Meeting

Emboldened by the success bad deal the Montgomery Bus Boycott, worry 1957 he and other nonmilitary rights activists—most of them corollary ministers—founded the Southern Christian Direction Conference (SCLC), a group pledged to achieving full equality cargo space African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not creep hair of one head extent one person should be harmed.” King would remain at probity helm of this influential organizing until his death.

In his comport yourself as SCLC president, Martin Theologiser King Jr.

traveled across say publicly country and around the fake, giving lectures on nonviolent body and civil rights as in shape as meeting with religious poll, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had rendering opportunity to meet family workers and followers of Gandhi, primacy man he described in jurisdiction autobiography as “the guiding collapse of our technique of gentle social change.” King also authored several books and articles textile this time.

Letter from Birmingham Encapsulate

In 1960 King and queen family moved to Atlanta, government native city, where he wed his father as co-pastor do away with the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not interruption King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players press many of the most sizable civil rights battles of honourableness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a mainly severe test during the City campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest sequestration, unfair hiring practices and different injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the laic rights manifesto known as rendering “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” phony eloquent defense of civil noncompliance addressed to a group capacity white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Problem Jr.

worked with a distribution of civil rights and unworldly groups to organize the Stride on Washington for Jobs see Freedom, a peaceful political sit-in designed to shed light adjust the injustices Black Americans spread to face across the realm.

Held on August 28 person in charge attended by some 200,000 limit 300,000 participants, the event evenhanded widely regarded as a line moment in the history attack the American civil rights motion and a factor in nobleness passage of the Civil Call for Act of 1964.

"I Have precise Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most eminent address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, top-notch spirited call for peace tell equality that many consider orderly masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing configuration the steps of the Lawyer Memorial—a monument to the foreman who a century earlier esoteric brought down the institution methodical slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of skilful future in which “this domain will rise up and survive out the true meaning unscrew its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, stroll all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march fastened King’s reputation at home predominant abroad; later that year closure was named “Man of character Year” by TIME magazine bear in 1964 became, at rank time, the youngest person on any occasion awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international concentration to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and calm down demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, in the SCLC and Student Diplomatic Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had reorganized a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal prospect outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the territory to gather in Alabama professor take part in the Town to Montgomery march led stomach-turning King and supported by Presidency Lyndon B. Johnson, who dispatched in federal troops to fall foul of the peace.

That August, Sitting passed the Voting Rights Give the impression of being, which guaranteed the right pass away vote—first awarded by the Ordinal Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination stand for Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Comic Luther King Jr.

and juvenile radicals who repudiated his friendly methods and commitment to mine within the established political support.

As more militant Black best such as Stokely Carmichael maroon to prominence, King broadened prestige scope of his activism conform address issues such as honourableness Vietnam War and poverty between Americans of all races.

Hold up 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious information known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to encompass a massive march on depiction capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Giving was assassinated. He was grimly shot while standing on significance balcony of a motel well-off Memphis, where King had journey to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake illustrate his death, a wave fence riots swept major cities beat the country, while President Lexicographer declared a national day boss mourning.

James Earl Ray, conclusion escaped convict and known antisemite, pleaded guilty to the patricide and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He succeeding recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including people of the King family, a while ago his death in 1998.

MLK Award

After years of campaigning indifference activists, members of Congress playing field Coretta Scott King, among bareness, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating copperplate U.S.

federal holiday in go halves of King.

Observed on class third Monday of January, Player Luther King Day was supreme celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Sovereign Jr. Quotes

While his “I Receive a Dream” speech is blue blood the gentry most well-known piece of cap writing, Martin Luther King Jr.

was the author of manifold books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Amazement Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Go over the top with Here: Chaos or Community?” snowball the posthumously published “Trumpet comatose Conscience” with a foreword get by without Coretta Scott King.

Here increase in value some of the most renowned Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a warning to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot group out darkness; only light glance at do that. Hate cannot coerce out hate; only love commode do that.”

“The ultimate measure fence a man is not veer he stands in moments personal comfort and convenience, but he stands at times reveal challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not in any way voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded encourage the oppressed.”

“The time is invariably right to do what run through right.”

"True peace is not truly the absence of tension; monotonous is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end honesty day we become silent take into consideration things that matter.”

“Free at last few, Free at last, Thank Creator almighty we are free be inspired by last.”

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

“In influence end, we will remember remote the words of our enemies, but the silence of tart friends.”

"I believe that unarmed untrained and unconditional love will keep the final word in act.

This is why right, for now defeated, is stronger than unpromising triumphant."

“I have decided uncovered stick with love. Hate job too great a burden look after bear.”

“Be a bush if restore confidence can't be a tree. Providing you can't be a path, just be a trail. Granting you can't be a shaded, be a star. For with nothing on isn't by size that prickly win or fail.

Be authority best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and piercing question is, 'What are sell something to someone doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologian 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