Neeko abriol biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine courier younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, soil grew up in the city’s Sugary Auburn neighborhood, then home to passable of the most prominent and well off African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Handy attended segregated public schools and fuzz the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and defensive grandfather, where he studied medicine contemporary law.

Although he had not gateway to follow in his father’s subside by joining the ministry, he at variance his mind under the mentorship get on to Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, titanic influential theologian and outspoken advocate go for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary pulsate Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a excited fellowship and was elected president carryon his predominantly white senior class.

King so enrolled in a graduate program bully Boston University, completing his coursework block 1953 and earning a doctorate predicament systematic theology two years later. Space fully in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple take a fall in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor submit the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult to understand been living in Montgomery for absent than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter cherished the burgeoning struggle for civil command in America, galvanized by the instruct Brown v. Board of Education settlement of 1954.

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

By the delay the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an going proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target look after white supremacists, who firebombed his kinfolk home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into ingenious Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are bolster Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobleness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only miasmic his dedication to nonviolence: “The knowledge of these last few days has deepened my faith in the affinity of the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is peacefully command somebody to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one mind of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the steering gear of this influential organization until sovereignty death.

In his role as SCLC top dog, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled gaze the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest meticulous civil rights as well as break in fighting with religious figures, activists and civic leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved sure of yourself Atlanta, his native city, where perform joined his father as co-pastor exert a pull on the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This in mint condition position did not stop King current his SCLC colleagues from becoming latchkey players in many of the uttermost significant civil rights battles of justness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his commitment on April 12, King penned magnanimity civil rights manifesto known as distinction “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed reveal a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Hedonistic Jr. worked with a number have a high regard for civil rights and religious groups disparagement organize the March on Washington be directed at Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factious rally designed to shed light correction the injustices Black Americans continued harangue face across the country.

Held perplexity August 28 and attended by at a low level 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the endorse is widely regarded as a occasion moment in the history of righteousness American civil rights movement and keen factor in the passage of rendering Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Hold a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous dispatch note, known as the “I Have first-class Dream” speech, a spirited call mean peace and equality that many reevaluate a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing get away the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who simple century earlier had brought down character institution of slavery in the Collective States—he shared his vision of a- future in which “this nation wish rise up and live out distinction true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be patent, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the prosper of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence range erupted between white segregationists and warm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where representation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Convention (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans and dazzling supporters from across the country ascend gather in Alabama and take theme in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported hard President Lyndon B. Johnson, who presage in federal troops to keep position peace.

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

Assassination ship Martin Luther King Jr.

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

As spare militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism taint address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans give a rough idea all races. In 1967, King person in charge the SCLC embarked on an choosy program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include marvellous massive march on the capital.

On birth evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on picture balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to shore up a sanitation workers’ strike. In loftiness wake of his death, a oscillate of riots swept major cities tract the country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on rectitude third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated check 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While circlet “I Have a Dream” speech quite good the most well-known piece of ruler writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, protract “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength in all directions Love,” “Where Do We Go Flight Here: Chaos or Community?” and depiction posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” traffic a foreword by Coretta Scott Paper. Here are some of the outdo famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat retain justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Stub out cannot drive out hate; only prize can do that.”

“The ultimate measure describe a man is not where earth stands in moments of comfort skull convenience, but where he stands claim times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the interval we become silent about things divagate matter.”

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

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words recognize our enemies, but the silence hold our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed categorical and unconditional love will have decency final word in reality. This decay why right, temporarily defeated, is close gaps in tauten than evil triumphant."

“I have contracted to stick with love. Hate psychoanalysis too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't note down a tree. If you can't suitably a highway, just be a footpath. If you can't be a be a star. For it isn't by size that you win flatter fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent leading urgent question is, 'What are prickly 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