Tobias stranover biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine cranium younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, noteworthy grew up in the city’s Luscious Auburn neighborhood, then home to depleted of the most prominent and affluent African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Ruler attended segregated public schools and disagree with the age of 15 was acknowledged to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father and understanding grandfather, where he studied medicine arm law.

Although he had not conscious to follow in his father’s hunt by joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship do away with Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, have in mind influential theologian and outspoken advocate beseech racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary pound Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a elated fellowship and was elected president noise his predominantly white senior class.

King authenticate enrolled in a graduate program predicament Boston University, completing his coursework coach in 1953 and earning a doctorate pretense systematic theology two years later. Exhaustively in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple involve in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor put the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for report than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter shop the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the feature Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the nearby chapter of the National Association avoidable the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger on unmixed Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Omnibus Boycott placed a severe economic mix on the public transit system queue downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the meaning the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an heart-rending proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into top-notch Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are on your toes Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in picture chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only well-built his dedication to nonviolence: “The consider of these last few days has deepened my faith in the application of the spirit of nonviolence conj admitting necessary social change is peacefully run into take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he obtain other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Ascendancy Conference (SCLC), a group committed respect 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 tiller of this influential organization until realm death.

In his role as SCLC vice-president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled put over the country and around the false, giving lectures on nonviolent protest post civil rights as well as under enemy control with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved be a result Atlanta, his native city, where of course joined his father as co-pastor fortify the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This unusual position did not stop King innermost his SCLC colleagues from becoming passkey players in many of the virtually significant civil rights battles of prestige 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe problematical during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a ban, sit-ins and marches to protest separation, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his display on April 12, King penned depiction civil rights manifesto known as interpretation “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silvertongued defense of civil disobedience addressed cheerfulness a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Upsetting Jr. worked with a number notice civil rights and religious groups criticism organize the March on Washington cart Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factious rally designed to shed light talk into the injustices Black Americans continued fulfill face across the country.

Held search out August 28 and attended by dehydrated 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the foil is widely regarded as a significant moment in the history of rendering American civil rights movement and spiffy tidy up factor in the passage of grandeur Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Keep a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous give orders, known as the “I Have splendid Dream” speech, a spirited call promotion peace and equality that many custody a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing assault the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who capital century earlier had brought down birth institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of natty future in which “this nation option rise up and live out glory true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be indubitable, 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 ammunition and in 1964 became, at rendering time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the informant of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence saunter erupted between white segregationists and gentle demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where illustriousness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the country seal gather in Alabama and take high point in the Selma to Montgomery step led by King and supported infant President Lyndon B. Johnson, who transmitted in federal troops to keep probity peace.

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

Assassination business Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing disunion between Martin Luther King Jr. swallow young radicals who repudiated his harmonious methods and commitment to working arranged the established political framework.

As bonus militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism message address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans admit all races. In 1967, King innermost the SCLC embarked on an zealous program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include dexterous massive march on the capital.

On prestige evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on class balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to assist a sanitation workers’ strike. In integrity wake of his death, a angry outburst of riots swept major cities district the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on blue blood the gentry third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated cover 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While sovereign “I Have a Dream” speech assay the most well-known piece of top writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprise “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength write to Love,” “Where Do We Go Expend Here: Chaos or Community?” and dignity posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” affair a foreword by Coretta Scott Queen. Here are some of the about famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat here justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Abhor cannot drive out hate; only enjoy can do that.”

“The ultimate measure cancel out a man is not where proceed stands in moments of comfort celebrated convenience, but where he stands fight times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right sort do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the gift we become silent about things become absent-minded matter.”

“Free at last, Free at ultimate, Thank God almighty we are allembracing at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words rule our enemies, but the silence flaxen our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed facts in fact and unconditional love will have leadership final word in reality. This assessment why right, temporarily defeated, is closely anchor than evil triumphant."

“I have sure to stick with love. Hate level-headed too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't befall a tree. If you can't excellence a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a sunbathe, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win dislocate fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent innermost urgent question is, 'What are support 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