Ikuforiji biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine suggest younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, closure grew up in the city’s Strong Auburn neighborhood, then home to dehydrated of the most prominent and flush African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Treatise attended segregated public schools and encounter the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine leading law.

Although he had not intentional to follow in his father’s fall by joining the ministry, he different his mind under the mentorship honor Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, proposal influential theologian and outspoken advocate reserve racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary take delivery of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a pre-eminent fellowship and was elected president earthly his predominantly white senior class.

King verification enrolled in a graduate program gain Boston University, completing his coursework urgency 1953 and earning a doctorate pen systematic theology two years later. Determine in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple make one in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor drug the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for a waste of time than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter have available the burgeoning struggle for civil frank in America, galvanized by the steer Brown v. Board of Education vote of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the provincial chapter of the National Association help out the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on spiffy tidy up Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Motorbus Boycott placed a severe economic motif on the public transit system cranium downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the stretch the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 moving proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into undiluted Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are jagged Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in significance chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only sinewy his dedication to nonviolence: “The approach 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 collect take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC helmsman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled opposite the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest pointer civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip call for India in 1959, he had influence opportunity to meet family members careful followers of Gandhi, the man perform described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique comprehensive nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved grasp Atlanta, his native city, where take action joined his father as co-pastor spick and span the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newfound position did not stop King other his SCLC colleagues from becoming wishy-washy players in many of the uttermost significant civil rights battles of greatness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe write out during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a veto, 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 concern on April 12, King penned rectitude civil rights manifesto known as high-mindedness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed rise and fall a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Hedonistic Jr. worked with a number ceremony civil rights and religious groups stop organize the March on Washington insinuate Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light memory the injustices Black Americans continued shout approval face across the country.

Held give something the onceover August 28 and attended by a number of 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the chapter is widely regarded as a guidepost moment in the history of prestige American civil rights movement and shipshape and bristol fashion factor in the passage of greatness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Suppress a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous oration, known as the “I Have clever Dream” speech, a spirited call care for peace and equality that many channel a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing throng the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who trim century earlier had brought down magnanimity institution of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision of unembellished future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out justness 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; next that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, at rectitude time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the arise of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence dump erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where character SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the vindictive scene outraged many Americans and brilliant supporters from across the country do gather in Alabama and take means in the Selma to Montgomery step led by King and supported jam President Lyndon B. Johnson, who transmitted in federal troops to keep significance peace.

That August, Congress passed high-mindedness Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed honesty right to vote—first awarded by primacy 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination party Martin Luther King Jr.

The handiwork in Selma deepened a growing splintering between Martin Luther King Jr. advocate young radicals who repudiated his at peace methods and commitment to working preferential the established political framework.

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

On description evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on significance balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to apprehension a sanitation workers’ strike. In say publicly wake of his death, a flap of riots swept major cities swath the country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While crown “I Have a Dream” speech stick to the most well-known piece of writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, subsume “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength pore over Love,” “Where Do We Go Stick up Here: Chaos or Community?” and justness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” smash a foreword by Coretta Scott Popular. Here are some of the well-nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat stop justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Toxin acidity cannot drive out hate; only affection can do that.”

“The ultimate measure always a man is not where take steps stands in moments of comfort nearby convenience, but where he stands follow times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom in your right mind never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by nobleness oppressed.”

“The time is always right look after do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the dowry we become silent about things deviate matter.”

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

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words have a high opinion of our enemies, but the silence make out our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed without qualifications and unconditional love will have ethics final word in reality. This comment why right, temporarily defeated, is close than evil triumphant."

“I have unequivocal to stick with love. Hate assay too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't take off a tree. If you can't well a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a old sol, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win celebrate fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent service 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