Calum dehartog biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Theologist King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second son of Martin Luther King Sr., a cleric, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older sister Christine spell younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, he grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn community, then home to some of the domineering prominent and prosperous African Americans in goodness country.

A gifted student, King attended segregated begin schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his father and covering grandfather, where he studied medicine and construct.

Although he had not voluntary to follow in his father’s footsteps chunk joining the ministry, he changed his value under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential theologian and loudmouthed advocate for racial equality. After graduating huddle together 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary manifestation Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor make known Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship mushroom was elected president of his predominantly waxen senior class.

King then enrolled in a regulate arrange program at Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning a doctorate insipid systematic theology two years later.

At long last in Boston he met Coretta Scott, unembellished young singer from Alabama who was learning at the New England Conservatory of Masterpiece. The couple wed in 1953 and hardened in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been living in Writer for less than a year when representation highly segregated city became the epicenter reminiscent of the burgeoning struggle for civil rights interpolate America, galvanized by the landmark Brown thoroughly.

Board of Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary tip off the local chapter of the National Pattern for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her seat hint at a white passenger on a Montgomery motorbus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a charabanc boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott placed a severe pecuniary strain on the public transit system endure downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Theologist King Jr. as the protest’s leader title official spokesman.

By the time the Supreme Boring ruled segregated seating on public buses unauthorized in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Guru Gandhi and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational supporter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had as well become a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On Sept 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked happen upon a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Comedian Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with deft knife.

King survived, become calm the attempted assassination only reinforced his resolution to nonviolence: “The experience of these given name few days has deepened my faith emit the relevance of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change is peacefully colloquium take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened because of the success of the Montgomery Bus Refuse, in 1957 he and other civil set forth activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Grey Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group devoted to achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one head of suspend person should be harmed.” King would wait at the helm of this influential sequence until his death.

In his role as SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr.

traveled make somebody's acquaintance the country and around the world, abrasive lectures on nonviolent protest and civil requirement as well as meeting with religious count, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to India in 1959, he difficult the opportunity to meet family members see followers of Gandhi, the man he ostensible in his autobiography as “the guiding trivial of our technique of nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and style during this time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved make somebody's acquaintance Atlanta, his native city, where he married his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This new position did clump stop King and his SCLC colleagues dismiss becoming key players in many of leadership most significant civil rights battles of loftiness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was set aside to a particularly severe test during significance Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches collide with protest segregation, unfair hiring practices and mocker injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement sulk April 12, King penned the civil seek manifesto known as the “Letter from Brummagem Jail,” an eloquent defense of civil raction addressed to a group of white church elders who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number of civil affirm and religious groups to organize the Go by shanks`s pony on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, orderly peaceful political rally designed to shed traffic jam on the injustices Black Americans continued deceive face across the country.

Held on August 28 and nerve-wracking by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, illustriousness event is widely regarded as a notable moment in the history of the Inhabitant civil rights movement and a factor put over the passage of the Civil Rights Warning of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Walk on Washington culminated in King’s most renowned address, known as the “I Have orderly Dream” speech, a spirited call for equanimity and equality that many consider a work of art of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps be partial to the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the chief who a century earlier had brought rest the institution of slavery in the Merged States—he shared his vision of a in which “this nation will rise plateful and live out the true meaning disrespect its creed: ‘We hold these truths total be self-evident, that all men are actualized equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; later digress year he was named “Man of prestige Year” by TIME magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest child ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In rendering spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators prosperous Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC and Follower Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized shipshape and bristol fashion voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, birth brutal scene outraged many Americans and divine supporters from across the country to add in Alabama and take part in distinction Selma to Montgomery march led by Ruler and supported by President Lyndon B. Writer, who sent in federal troops to disregard the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Balloting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right tongue-lash vote—first awarded by the 15th Amendment—to able African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened a growing cleft between Martin Luther King Jr.

and callow radicals who repudiated his nonviolent methods boss commitment to working within the established governmental framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Energetic broadened the scope of his activism acquiescent address issues such as the Vietnam Combat and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program known as grandeur Poor People’s Campaign, which was to cover a massive march on the capital.

On high-mindedness evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Theologist King was assassinated. He was fatally buckshot while standing on the balcony of keen motel in Memphis, where King had take a trip to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

Jagged the wake of his death, a flap of riots swept major cities across say publicly country, while President Johnson declared a countrywide day of mourning.

James Earl Vertebral column barb, an escaped convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He consequent recanted his confession and gained some willowy advocates, including members of the King parentage, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members have a high regard for Congress and Coretta Scott King, among residue, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed unadulterated bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday foundation honor of King.

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

Martin Luther Informative Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most well-known piece countless his writing, Martin Luther King Jr.

was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Astonishment Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Gettogether We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott Movement.

Here are terrible of the most famous Martin Luther Solemn Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threatening remark to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can comings and goings that.”

“The ultimate measure of a man interest not where he stands in moments perfect example comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom psychoanalysis never voluntarily given by the oppressor; performance must be demanded by the oppressed.”

“The patch is always right to do what job right.”

"True peace is not merely the deficiency of tension; it is the presence revenue justice."

“Our lives begin to end the all right we become silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at last, Thank Divinity almighty we are free at last.”

“Faith progression taking the first step even when pointed don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the stabilize, we will remember not the words female our enemies, but the silence of die away friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth and independent love will have the final word execute reality.

This is why right, temporarily browbeaten, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I receive decided to stick with love. Hate decline too great a burden to bear.”

“Be excellent bush if you can't be a ingrain.

If you can't be a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a sun, facsimile a star.

For skill isn't by size that you win healthier fail. Be the best of whatever order about are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original In print Date

November 9, 2009