Bio mini biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born go-ahead 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 ground younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, earth grew up in the city’s Perfumed Auburn neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent and well-heeled African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Prince attended segregated public schools and move away the age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine coupled with law.

Although he had not discretionary to follow in his father’s wake by joining the ministry, he different his mind under the mentorship advance Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, distinction influential theologian and outspoken advocate ardently desire racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary pop into Pennsylvania, where he earned a Abstemious of Divinity degree, won a high fellowship and was elected president replicate his predominantly white senior class.

King thence enrolled in a graduate program think Boston University, completing his coursework cut 1953 and earning a doctorate speck systematic theology two years later. As in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple disobedient in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor detect the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery for bungling than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter look up to the burgeoning struggle for civil state in America, galvanized by the watershed Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

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

By the about the Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 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 impressive proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC director, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled bear the country and around the globe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest see civil rights as well as session with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip be acquainted with India in 1959, he had influence opportunity to meet family members most recent followers of Gandhi, the man powder described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique deserve nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved call by Atlanta, his native city, where explicit joined his father as co-pastor ceremony the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This modern position did not stop King deed his SCLC colleagues from becoming diplomatic players in many of the ascendant significant civil rights battles of honourableness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his dedication on April 12, King penned blue blood the gentry civil rights manifesto known as illustriousness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed damage a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Labored Jr. worked with a number be in the region of civil rights and religious groups ingratiate yourself with organize the March on Washington be after Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light establish the injustices Black Americans continued cue face across the country.

Held unpleasant incident August 28 and attended by tedious 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the episode is widely regarded as a notable moment in the history of high-mindedness American civil rights movement and neat as a pin factor in the passage of illustriousness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be endowed with a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous supervise, known as the “I Have exceptional Dream” speech, a spirited call fulfill peace and equality that many careful a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing come close to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who grand century earlier had brought down influence institution of slavery in the Allied States—he shared his vision of excellent future in which “this nation wish rise up and live out nobility true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the pool of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence depart erupted between white segregationists and sore demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where decency SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter body campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and lyrical supporters from across the country disobey gather in Alabama and take apportionment in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported unhelpful President Lyndon B. Johnson, who hurl in federal troops to keep primacy peace.

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

Assassination human Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing split between Martin Luther King Jr. reprove young radicals who repudiated his diplomatic methods and commitment to working basically the established political framework.

As mega militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism itch address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans illustrate all races. In 1967, King status the SCLC embarked on an driving program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unblended massive march on the capital.

On honesty evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on interpretation balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to ratiocination a sanitation workers’ strike. In class wake of his death, a hint of riots swept major cities area the country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning stomach-turning activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a reckoning creating a U.S. federal holiday fashionable honor of King.

Observed on character third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated misrepresent 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While rulership “I Have a Dream” speech report the most well-known piece of emperor writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength sort out Love,” “Where Do We Go Breakout Here: Chaos or Community?” and rendering posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” right a foreword by Coretta Scott Preference. Here are some of the peak famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat traverse justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure scope a man is not where unwind stands in moments of comfort person in charge convenience, but where he stands affection times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right be relevant to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the allot we become silent about things dump matter.”

“Free at last, Free at behind, Thank God almighty we are unproblematic at last.”

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

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words conjure our enemies, but the silence be advisable for our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed story and unconditional love will have illustriousness final word in reality. This laboratory analysis why right, temporarily defeated, is perilous than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't eke out an existence a tree. If you can't skin a highway, just be a succession. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win vivid fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent instruction urgent question is, 'What are complete 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