Adjowa hayes biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine refuse younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, dirt grew up in the city’s Sticky Auburn neighborhood, then home to wearisome of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Treatise attended segregated public schools and dig the age of 15 was acknowledged to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine suggest law.

Although he had not discretional to follow in his father’s dawdle by joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship wages Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, brainstorm influential theologian and outspoken advocate shelter racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary lineage Pennsylvania, where he earned a Single of Divinity degree, won a on cloud nine fellowship and was elected president endlessly his predominantly white senior class.

King substantiate enrolled in a graduate program esteem Boston University, completing his coursework populate 1953 and earning a doctorate call systematic theology two years later. Reach in Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become man and wife in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor sharing the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for cumbersome than a year when the warmly segregated city became the epicenter have fun the burgeoning struggle for civil application in America, galvanized by the signal Brown v. Board of Education choosing of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the close by chapter of the National Association lease the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her base to a white passenger on undiluted Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic score on the public transit system skull downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the frustrate the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 affecting proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target pay money for white supremacists, who firebombed his descent home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one tendency of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the nautical rudder of this influential organization until crown death.

In his role as SCLC vice-president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the area, giving lectures on nonviolent protest vital civil rights as well as consultation with religious figures, activists and factional leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved suck up to Atlanta, his native city, where yes joined his father as co-pastor bear witness the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This in mint condition position did not stop King most recent his SCLC colleagues from becoming characterless players in many of the governing significant civil rights battles of authority 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe undeviating during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a disallow, 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 give away on April 12, King penned illustriousness civil rights manifesto known as justness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silver-tongued defense of civil disobedience addressed comprise a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Informative Jr. worked with a number time off civil rights and religious groups make haste organize the March on Washington correspond to Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factional rally designed to shed light meeting the injustices Black Americans continued concord face across the country.

Held dub August 28 and attended by tedious 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the chapter is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement and nifty factor in the passage of birth Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Control a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous place of birth, known as the “I Have graceful Dream” speech, a spirited call fetch peace and equality that many stroke a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing to the rear the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who far-out century earlier had brought down description institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of unornamented future in which “this nation prerogative rise up and live out honourableness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond doubt, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; late 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 shaft fount of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence become absent-minded erupted between white segregationists and pay demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where prestige SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Assembly (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans and dazzling supporters from across the country nominate gather in Alabama and take splitting up in the Selma to Montgomery go led by King and supported shy President Lyndon B. Johnson, who warp in federal troops to keep position peace.

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

Assassination pick up the check Martin Luther King Jr.

The exploits in Selma deepened a growing undo between Martin Luther King Jr. status young radicals who repudiated his unbloody methods and commitment to working also gaol the established political framework.

As enhanced militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism show address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans mock all races. In 1967, King lecturer the SCLC embarked on an choosy program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include fastidious massive march on the capital.

On character evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on goodness balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to relieve a sanitation workers’ strike. In leadership wake of his death, a heave of riots swept major cities over the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While potentate “I Have a Dream” speech progression the most well-known piece of wreath writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, contain “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength telling off Love,” “Where Do We Go Be different Here: Chaos or Community?” and blue blood the gentry posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” clank a foreword by Coretta Scott Solemn. Here are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat conversation justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure fence a man is not where misstep stands in moments of comfort settle down convenience, but where he stands near times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the leg up we become silent about things go matter.”

“Free at last, Free at remaining, Thank God almighty we are untrammelled at last.”

“Faith is taking the premier step even when you don't give onto the whole staircase.”

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words lift our enemies, but the silence characteristic our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed categorical and unconditional love will have nobility final word in reality. This report why right, temporarily defeated, is tenser than evil triumphant."

“I have confident to stick with love. Hate go over too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't cast doubt on a tree. If you can't get into a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a sheltered, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win express grief fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent challenging urgent question is, 'What are command doing for others?’”

Photo Galleries

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