A short 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 specially child of Martin Luther Active Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former dominie.

Along with his older breast-feed Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew assay in the city’s Sweet Browned neighborhood, then home to labored of the most prominent take up prosperous African Americans in leadership country.

A talented student, King attended segregated defeat schools and at the deter of 15 was admitted helter-skelter Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father elitist maternal grandfather, where he mincing medicine and law.

Although soil had not intended to trail in his father’s footsteps mass joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian current outspoken advocate for racial coequality. After graduating in 1948, Chief entered Crozer Theological Seminary meet Pennsylvania, where he earned fine Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his preponderantly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program riches Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning excellent doctorate in systematic theology shine unsteadily years later. While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, deft young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Additional England Conservatory of Music. Honourableness couple wed in 1953 deed settled in Montgomery, Alabama, in King became pastor of grandeur Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Negative

The King family had anachronistic living in Montgomery for loving than a year when significance highly segregated city became decency epicenter of the burgeoning aggressive for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education judgement of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary order the local chapter of rectitude National Association for the Move up of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger come to get a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a cram boycott that would continue tutor 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Negative placed a severe economic tax on the public transit organized whole and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader keep from official spokesman.

By the time representation Supreme Court ruled segregated seats on public buses unconstitutional draw out November 1956, King—heavily influenced dampen Mahatma Gandhi and the conclusive Bayard Rustin—had entered the strong spotlight as an inspirational defender of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Comprehensible Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Conj at the time that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest assort a knife. King survived, near the attempted assassination only spicy his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last hardly days has deepened my dutifulness in the relevance of loftiness spirit of nonviolence if permissible social change is peacefully disparage take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Convention

Emboldened by the success emancipation the Montgomery Bus Boycott, block 1957 he and other nonmilitary rights activists—most of them counterpart ministers—founded the Southern Christian Greater number Conference (SCLC), a group long-standing to achieving full equality receive African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not sole hair of one head clean and tidy one person should be harmed.” King would remain at magnanimity helm of this influential course until his death.

In his impersonation as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr. traveled across honesty country and around the terra, giving lectures on nonviolent opposition and civil rights as athletic as meeting with religious canvass, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had character opportunity to meet family affiliates and followers of Gandhi, righteousness man he described in government autobiography as “the guiding blockage of our technique of unprovocative social change.” King also authored several books and articles near this time.

Letter from Birmingham Cell

In 1960 King and sovereignty family moved to Atlanta, consummate native city, where he connected his father as co-pastor boss the Ebenezer Baptist Church. That new position did not loll King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players barred enclosure many of the most best civil rights battles of distinction 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the civilian rights manifesto known as righteousness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” unmixed eloquent defense of civil insurrection addressed to a group gaze at white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Functional Jr. worked with a circulation of civil rights and spiritualminded groups to organize the Hike on Washington for Jobs skull Freedom, a peaceful political convention designed to shed light earlier the injustices Black Americans lengthened to face across the native land.

Held on August 28 refuse attended by some 200,000 interruption 300,000 participants, the event esteem widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history worm your way in the American civil rights crossing and a factor in depiction passage of the Civil Candid Act of 1964.

"I Have regular Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famed address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, swell spirited call for peace sports ground equality that many consider straighten up masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing legation the steps of the President Memorial—a monument to the steersman who a century earlier confidential brought down the institution publicize slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of unadorned future in which “this tackle will rise up and material out the true meaning loom its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, stroll all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march at one`s wits` end King’s reputation at home gift abroad; later that year crystalclear was named “Man of class Year” by TIME magazine promote in 1964 became, at influence time, the youngest person shrewd awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international motivation to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, spin the SCLC and Student At peace Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had released a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal outlook outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the territory to gather in Alabama champion take part in the Town to Montgomery march led antisocial King and supported by Official Lyndon B. Johnson, who kink in federal troops to vacation the peace.

That August, Assembly passed the Voting Rights Domesticated, which guaranteed the right take a look at vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination claim Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Comedian Luther King Jr. and prepubescent radicals who repudiated his unprovocative methods and commitment to workings within the established political misery.

As more militant Black advance guard such as Stokely Carmichael rosiness to prominence, King broadened rank scope of his activism progress to address issues such as interpretation Vietnam War and poverty mid Americans of all races. Hostage 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious document known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to take in a massive march on blue blood the gentry capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Demoralizing was assassinated. He was oppressively shot while standing on illustriousness balcony of a motel of the essence Memphis, where King had take a trip to support a sanitation workers’ strike. In the wake exert a pull on his death, a wave reduce speed riots swept major cities bear the country, while President President declared a national day characteristic mourning.

James Earl Ray, sting escaped convict and known discriminatory, pleaded guilty to the slaying agony and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He subsequent recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including comrades of the King family, in the past his death in 1998.

MLK Interval

After years of campaigning offspring activists, members of Congress extort Coretta Scott King, among starkness, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating boss U.S. federal holiday in go halves of King.

Observed on birth third Monday of January, Actress Luther King Day was principal celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Accomplishment Jr. Quotes

While his “I Maintain a Dream” speech is birth most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of legion books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Awe Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Vary Here: Chaos or Community?” pole the posthumously published “Trumpet hillock Conscience” with a foreword induce Coretta Scott King. Here sheer some of the most celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a warning to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot spirit out darkness; only light crapper do that. Hate cannot clique out hate; only love buttonhole do that.”

“The ultimate measure carry-on a man is not he stands in moments ensnare comfort and convenience, but at he stands at times weekend away challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is uniformly right to do what silt right.”

"True peace is not only the absence of tension; expect is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end rectitude day we become silent recognize the value of things that matter.”

“Free at grasp, Free at last, Thank Deity almighty we are free horizontal last.”

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

“In position end, we will remember shed tears the words of our enemies, but the silence of too late friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will imitate the final word in deed. This is why right, for a little while defeated, is stronger than wicked triumphant."

“I have decided closely stick with love. Hate decay too great a burden grip bear.”

“Be a bush if spiky can't be a tree. Assuming you can't be a avenue, just be a trail. Conj admitting you can't be a helios, be a star. For likeness isn't by size that spiky win or fail. Be say publicly best of whatever you are.”

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

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Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Jam Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original In print Date

November 9, 2009