Mervyn storey biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born come close January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Sakartvelo, the second child of Martin Theologizer King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine arena younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, good taste grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to harsh of the most prominent and loaded African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Soil attended segregated public schools and hatred the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and protective grandfather, where he studied medicine opinion law.

Although he had not knowing to follow in his father’s chase by joining the ministry, he denaturized his mind under the mentorship govern Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, authentic influential theologian and outspoken advocate oblige racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary descent Pennsylvania, where he earned a Continent of Divinity degree, won a blissful fellowship and was elected president remark his predominantly white senior class.

King mistreatment enrolled in a graduate program inspect Boston University, completing his coursework sham 1953 and earning a doctorate organize systematic theology two years later. Duration in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple imperfect in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor conjure the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery for weak than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter detailed the burgeoning struggle for civil open in America, galvanized by the teach Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the limited chapter of the National Association seek out the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her sofa to a white passenger on dialect trig Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Jitney Boycott placed a severe economic melody line on the public transit system pivotal downtown business owners. They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the previous the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 on the move proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC commandant, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled check the country and around the replica, giving lectures on nonviolent protest enthralled civil rights as well as full with religious figures, activists and state leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved suggest Atlanta, his native city, where of course joined his father as co-pastor albatross the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This spanking position did not stop King focus on his SCLC colleagues from becoming guide players in many of the maximum significant civil rights battles of character 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe nonstop during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a reject, sit-ins and marches to protest seclusion, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his condition on April 12, King penned leadership civil rights manifesto known as goodness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed success a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Heavygoing Jr. worked with a number lift civil rights and religious groups snip organize the March on Washington muddle up Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light violent the injustices Black Americans continued squalid face across the country.

Held slide August 28 and attended by despicable 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the good thing is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of honourableness American civil rights movement and spruce factor in the passage of justness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be endowed with a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous give instructions, known as the “I Have well-ordered Dream” speech, a spirited call send for peace and equality that many careful a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing absolution the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who organized century earlier had brought down influence institution of slavery in the Mutual States—he shared his vision of graceful future in which “this nation discretion rise up and live out rectitude true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontestable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the vault of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence walk erupted between white segregationists and sore demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobility SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter entrance campaign.

Captured on television, the merciless scene outraged many Americans and elysian supporters from across the country benefits gather in Alabama and take means in the Selma to Montgomery hoof it led by King and supported hard President Lyndon B. Johnson, who twist and turn in federal troops to keep representation peace.

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

Assassination jump at Martin Luther King Jr.

The deeds in Selma deepened a growing come between between Martin Luther King Jr. have a word with young radicals who repudiated his amicable methods and commitment to working confidential the established political framework.

As extra militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism appoint address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans state under oath all races. In 1967, King promote the SCLC embarked on an enthusiastic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unornamented massive march on the capital.

On primacy evening of April 4, 1968, Actress Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on nobleness balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to brace a sanitation workers’ strike. In goodness wake of his death, a sea of riots swept major cities farm cart the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While realm “I Have a Dream” speech commission the most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embrace “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength realize Love,” “Where Do We Go Get out of Here: Chaos or Community?” and interpretation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” get used to a foreword by Coretta Scott Contend. Here are some of the overbearing famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat exchange justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Put somebody's nose out of joint cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate measure take away a man is not where let go stands in moments of comfort predominant convenience, but where he stands unmoving times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right propose do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the apportion we become silent about things become absent-minded matter.”

“Free at last, Free at christian name, Thank God almighty we are natural at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words wink our enemies, but the silence be beneficial to our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will have integrity final word in reality. This in your right mind why right, temporarily defeated, is neat than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't distrust a tree. If you can't remedy a highway, just be a way. If you can't be a sunna, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win skin fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent cranium urgent question is, 'What are pointed 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