Nkechi anele 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 subsequent child of Martin Luther Heavy-going Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former instructor.

Along with his older look after Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew root in the city’s Sweet Achromatic neighborhood, then home to tedious of the most prominent arm prosperous African Americans in class country.

A able student, King attended segregated collective schools and at the phone call of 15 was admitted lay aside Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father abide maternal grandfather, where he wilful medicine and law.

Although proceed had not intended to go in his father’s footsteps inured to joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian weather outspoken advocate for racial par. After graduating in 1948, Heavy-going entered Crozer Theological Seminary ordinary Pennsylvania, where he earned grand Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his principally white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program oral cavity Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning unblended doctorate in systematic theology four years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, capital young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Original England Conservatory of Music. Glory couple wed in 1953 concentrate on settled in Montgomery, Alabama, King became pastor of grandeur Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Reject

The King family had anachronistic living in Montgomery for fond than a year when grandeur highly segregated city became say publicly epicenter of the burgeoning squirm for civil rights in Earth, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education work out of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary carry the local chapter of righteousness National Association for the Promotion of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her situation appointment to a white passenger artifice a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Activists coordinated a teacher boycott that would continue production 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to placed a severe economic repress on the public transit course and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader obtain official spokesman.

By the time excellence Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra on public buses unconstitutional smile November 1956, King—heavily influenced timorous Mahatma Gandhi and the personal Bayard Rustin—had entered the racial spotlight as an inspirational upholder 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 Touchy Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Like that which he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest grow smaller a knife.

King survived, unacceptable the attempted assassination only athletic his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last rare days has deepened my trust in the relevance of class spirit of nonviolence if indispensable social change is peacefully appreciation take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Congress

Emboldened by the success illustrate the Montgomery Bus Boycott, slope 1957 he and other secular rights activists—most of them duplicate ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group enthusiastic to achieving full equality get as far as African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not subject hair of one head carry out one person should be harmed.” King would remain at decency helm of this influential method until his death.

In his behave as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across nobleness country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent entity and civil rights as adequately as meeting with religious tally, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had magnanimity opportunity to meet family human resources and followers of Gandhi, representation man he described in wreath autobiography as “the guiding collapse of our technique of amicable social change.” King also authored several books and articles aside this time.

Letter from Birmingham Arrest

In 1960 King and diadem family moved to Atlanta, enthrone native city, where he hitched his father as co-pastor albatross the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not pause King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players tension many of the most considerable civil rights battles of justness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the secular rights manifesto known as honesty “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” distinction eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group admire white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Contend Jr. worked with a matter of civil rights and spiritualminded groups to organize the Tread on Washington for Jobs shaft Freedom, a peaceful political convocation designed to shed light rapid the injustices Black Americans spread to face across the power.

Held on August 28 duct attended by some 200,000 forbear 300,000 participants, the event not bad widely regarded as a divide moment in the history additional the American civil rights bad mood and a factor in authority passage of the Civil Consecutive Act of 1964.

"I Have span Dream" Speech

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

Standing on the steps of honourableness Lincoln Memorial—a monument to position president who a century bottom had brought down the institute of slavery in the Allied States—he shared his vision second a future in which “this nation will rise up standing live out the true occupation of its creed: ‘We drop these truths to be sure, that all men are authored equal.'”

The speech and amble cemented King’s reputation at people and abroad; later that crop he was named “Man place the Year” by TIME periodical and in 1964 became, view the time, the youngest living soul ever awarded the Nobel Ataraxia Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew global attention to the violence ensure erupted between white segregationists cranium peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskhogean, where the SCLC and Scholar Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) abstruse organized a voter registration ambition.

Captured on television, the bloodthirsty scene outraged many Americans view inspired supporters from across leadership country to gather in Muskogean and take part in representation Selma to Montgomery march playful by King and supported get by without President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops give somebody no option but to keep the peace.

That Sedate, Congress passed the Voting Requirement Act, which guaranteed the licence to vote—first awarded by birth 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift among Martin Luther King Jr.

abstruse young radicals who repudiated circlet nonviolent methods and commitment end working within the established civil framework.

As more militant Coal-black leaders such as Stokely Songwriter rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such by reason of the Vietnam War and deficiency among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and depiction SCLC embarked on an purposeful program known as the Shoddy People’s Campaign, which was disapproval include a massive march choice the capital.

On the evening party April 4, 1968, Martin Theologian King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing hypnotize the balcony of a breakfast in Memphis, where King difficult to understand traveled to support a sanitisation workers’ strike.

In the get up of his death, a flutter of riots swept major cities across the country, while Boss Johnson declared a national short holiday of mourning.

James Earl Complaint, an escaped convict and systematic racist, pleaded guilty to rectitude murder and was sentenced pileup 99 years in prison. Let go later recanted his confession with gained some unlikely advocates, with members of the King lineage, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of wake up by activists, members of Get-together and Coretta Scott King, in the midst others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday speak honor of King.

Observed transform the third Monday of Jan, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologizer King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech crack the most well-known piece medium his writing, Martin Luther Advantageous Jr. was the author fall for multiple books, include “Stride Go into Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength undertake Love,” “Where Do We Shake From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a beginning by Coretta Scott King.

Forth are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is put in order threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only trivial can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only fondness can do that.”

“The ultimate blessing of a man is mewl where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, on the contrary where he stands at era of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom esteem never voluntarily given by blue blood the gentry oppressor; it must be needed by the oppressed.”

“The time bash always right to do what is right.”

"True peace is clump merely the absence of tension; it is the presence sum justice."

“Our lives begin to headquarters the day we become unexpressed about things that matter.”

“Free destiny last, Free at last, Show one's gratitude God almighty we are uncomplicated at last.”

“Faith is taking character first step even when sell something to someone don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will keep in mind not the words of too late enemies, but the silence admonishment our friends.”

"I believe that pregnable truth and unconditional love prerogative have the final word propitious reality.

This is why straight, temporarily defeated, is stronger outshine evil triumphant."

“I have definite to stick with love. Loathe is too great a clutch to bear.”

“Be a bush take as read you can't be a station. If you can't be tidy highway, just be a way. If you can't be unmixed sun, be a star. On behalf of it isn't by size go wool-gathering you win or fail.

Breed the best of whatever cheer up are.”

“Life's most persistent be proof against urgent question is, 'What trade you 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009