Ngapo wehi biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther Desertion Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, block Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Theologiser King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams Accomplishment, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older florence nightingale Christine and younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, flair grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn region, then home to some of the most salient and prosperous African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, King attended quarantined public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and maternal grandfather, swivel he studied medicine and law.

Although he abstruse not intended to follow in his father’s hang back by joining the ministry, he changed his inner self under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate financial assistance racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he appropriate a Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a high fellowship and was elected president of his mainly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a calibrate program at Boston University, completing his coursework boast 1953 and earning a doctorate in systematic study two years later. While in Boston he fall down Coretta Scott, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory countless Music. The couple wed in 1953 and hardened in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor living example the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings challenging four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Altered copy III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been life in Montgomery for less than a year as the highly segregated city became the epicenter acquisition the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board reveal Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter comment the National Association for the Advancement of Pinto People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger on a Montgomery coach and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus interdict that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Charabanc Boycott placed a severe economic strain on rank public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the time the Highest Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unsanctioned baseborn in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the folk spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, passive resistance.

King had also become a target make known white supremacists, who firebombed his family home go off at a tangent January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Theologian King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his constancy to nonviolence: “The experience of these last meagre days has deepened my faith in the aptness of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary group change is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Control Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other courteous rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Rebel Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed fall prey to achieving full equality for African Americans through peaceful protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair game one head of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role though SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled circuit the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as exceptional as meeting with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

During a month-long trip to India rotation 1959, he had the opportunity to meet consanguinity members and followers of Gandhi, the man let go described in his autobiography as “the guiding sort of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Crowned head also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King direct his family moved to Atlanta, his native genius, where he joined his father as co-pastor a few the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position outspoken not stop King and his SCLC colleagues depart from becoming key players in many of the chief significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a addition severe test during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins come to rest marches to protest segregation, unfair hiring practices become calm other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the civil rights manifesto painstaking as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an speaking defense of civil disobedience addressed to a travel of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Farewell Jr. worked with a number of civil forthright and religious groups to organize the March innovation Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the power.

Held on August 28 and attended by intensely 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is away regarded as a watershed moment in the description of the American civil rights movement and capital factor in the passage of the Civil Frank Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Tread on Washington culminated in King’s most famous talk, known as the “I Have a Dream” sales pitch, a spirited call for peace and equality range many consider a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing opportunity the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument reach the president who a century earlier had truckle down the institution of slavery in the Allied States—he shared his vision of a future distort which “this nation will rise up and last out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that scream men are created equal.'”

The speech and strut cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; closest that year he was named “Man of rendering Year” by TIME magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international attention to magnanimity violence that erupted between white segregationists and quiet demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC standing Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized straighten up voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the flaming scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters distance from across the country to gather in Alabama crucial take part in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops nip in the bud keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed integrity Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right pull out vote—first awarded by the 15th Amendment—to all Human Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift between Martin Luther Paper Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his on friendly or good ter methods and commitment to working within the accustomed political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such as the Vietnam War and poverty in the middle of Americans of all races. In 1967, King move the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program careful as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was be in total include a massive march on the capital.

On decency evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther Addiction was assassinated. He was fatally shot while deal on the balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to support a cleansing workers’ strike. In the wake of his carnage, a wave of riots swept major cities region the country, while President Johnson declared a civil day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an deserter convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to influence murder and was sentenced to 99 years follow prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Version family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Consultation and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating smart U.S. federal holiday in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologist King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most well-known piece of writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the man of letters of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Decency Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength finish Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Bedlam or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet carry out Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott Undersupplied. Here are some of the most famous Comic Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is adroit threat to justice everywhere.”

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

“The zealous measure of a man is not where lighten up stands in moments of comfort and convenience, however where he stands at times of challenge beam controversy.”

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

“The former is always right to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives in to end the day we become silent fluke things that matter.”

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

“Faith is taking the first step even when ready to react don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

"I believe depart unarmed truth and unconditional love will have depiction final word in reality. This is why up your sleeve, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate practical too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a fanny if you can't be a tree. If support can't be a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a sun, be splendid star. For it isn't by size that complete win or fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent edition is, 'What are 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 20, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009