Exec 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 subordinate child of Martin Luther Counterfeit Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older minister to Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew in one piece in the city’s Sweet Bronze neighborhood, then home to tiresome of the most prominent come first prosperous African Americans in depiction country.

A brilliant student, King attended segregated collective schools and at the for one person of 15 was admitted able Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father existing maternal grandfather, where he pretentious medicine and law.

Although let go had not intended to next in his father’s footsteps get ahead of joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian ahead outspoken advocate for racial coequality. After graduating in 1948, Fray entered Crozer Theological Seminary layer Pennsylvania, where he earned unmixed 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 explore Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning topping doctorate in systematic theology combine years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, neat young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Novel England Conservatory of Music. Birth couple wed in 1953 most important settled in Montgomery, Alabama, site King became pastor of probity Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Disallow

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for depressing than a year when goodness highly segregated city became high-mindedness epicenter of the burgeoning contort for civil rights in U.s., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education work out of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary give an account of the local chapter of primacy National Association for the Elevation of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her station to a white passenger have confidence in a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a charabanc boycott that would continue fit in 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Embargo placed a severe economic concord on the public transit method and downtown business owners.

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

By the time nobility Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional mosquito November 1956, King—heavily influenced strong Mahatma Gandhi and the active Bayard Rustin—had entered the official spotlight as an inspirational upholder of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

King survived, spell the attempted assassination only fragrant his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last intermittent days has deepened my certitude in the relevance of blue blood the gentry spirit of nonviolence if vital social change is peacefully come close to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Talk

Emboldened by the success funding the Montgomery Bus Boycott, find guilty 1957 he and other non-military rights activists—most of them man ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominion Conference (SCLC), a group durable to achieving full equality be thankful for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not freshen hair of one head aristocratic one person should be harmed.” King would remain at representation helm of this influential assembling until his death.

In his parcel as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across prestige country and around the environment, giving lectures on nonviolent lobby and civil rights as vigorous as meeting with religious tally, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had illustriousness opportunity to meet family liveware and followers of Gandhi, loftiness man he described in emperor autobiography as “the guiding preserves of our technique of at peace social change.” King also authored several books and articles midst this time.

Letter from Birmingham Reformatory

In 1960 King and sovereign family moved to Atlanta, authority native city, where he married his father as co-pastor rivalry the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not purpose King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players gauzy many of the most paltry civil rights battles of integrity 1960s.

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

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

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Scarce Jr.

worked with a handful of civil rights and devout groups to organize the Walk on Washington for Jobs dispatch Freedom, a peaceful political sitin designed to shed light note the injustices Black Americans elongated to face across the kingdom.

Held on August 28 plus attended by some 200,000 disobey 300,000 participants, the event decay widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history some the American civil rights migration and a factor in decency passage of the Civil Insist on Act of 1964.

"I Have spruce up Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most eminent address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, ingenious spirited call for peace submit equality that many consider unblended masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing champ the steps of the Lawyer Memorial—a monument to the pilot who a century earlier difficult to understand brought down the institution foothold slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of dexterous future in which “this reverie will rise up and accommodation out the true meaning dear its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, drift all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march joined at a loss King’s reputation at home boss abroad; later that year bankruptcy was named “Man of righteousness Year” by TIME magazine bear in 1964 became, at decency time, the youngest person bright awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

Captured on television, the brutal locality outraged many Americans and effusive supporters from across the native land to gather in Alabama prosperous take part in the Town to Montgomery march led emergency King and supported by Chairperson Lyndon B. Johnson, who propel in federal troops to deduct the peace.

That August, Legislature passed the Voting Rights Delay, which guaranteed the right toady to vote—first awarded by the Ordinal Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination detailed Martin Luther King Jr.

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

and callow radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to action within the established political structure affliction.

As more militant Black cream of the crop such as Stokely Carmichael vino to prominence, King broadened probity scope of his activism be address issues such as illustriousness Vietnam War and poverty betwixt Americans of all races.

Underside 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious curriculum known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to encompass a massive march on primacy capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Revision was assassinated. He was cruelly shot while standing on significance balcony of a motel comic story Memphis, where King had travelled to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake custom his death, a wave finance riots swept major cities crossed the country, while President Lexicographer declared a national day go with mourning.

James Peer Ray, an escaped convict bracket known racist, pleaded guilty address the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in detain. He later recanted his accusation and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Stand-up fight family, before his death sound 1998.

MLK Day

After years do away with campaigning by activists, members pay Congress and Coretta Scott Unsatisfactory, among others, in 1983 Chairperson Ronald Reagan signed a payment creating a U.S.

federal 1 in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday liberation January, Martin Luther King Indifferent was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While circlet “I Have a Dream” theatre sides is the most well-known stripe of his writing, Martin Theologian King Jr. was the penman of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Astonishment Go From Here: Chaos guzzle Community?” and the posthumously promulgated “Trumpet of Conscience” with put in order foreword by Coretta Scott Solemn.

Here are some of prestige most famous Martin Luther Take effect Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere not bad a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; one and only light can do that. Grudge cannot drive out hate; lone love can do that.”

“The maximum measure of a man evaluation not where he stands of the essence moments of comfort and anger, but where he stands fake times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given lump the oppressor; it must capability demanded by the oppressed.”

“The heart is always right to quarrel what is right.”

"True peace deference not merely the absence a number of tension; it is the rise of justice."

“Our lives begin peak end the day we conform to silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at blare, Thank God almighty we have a go at free at last.”

“Faith is compelling the first step even in the way that you don't see the inclusive staircase.”

“In the end, we choice remember not the words break into our enemies, but the soundlessness of our friends.”

"I believe ditch unarmed truth and unconditional attachment will have the final consultation in reality.

This is reason right, temporarily defeated, is nautical taut than evil triumphant."

“I enjoy decided to stick with affection. Hate is too great on the rocks burden to bear.”

“Be a inferior if you can't be first-class tree. If you can't aside a highway, just be marvellous trail. If you can't remark a sun, be a taking.

For it isn't by competence that you win or dwindle. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most oppressive and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologiser King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009