Marci rossell biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the alternate child of Martin Luther Popular Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former pedagogue.

Along with his older fille Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew make younger in the city’s Sweet Brown neighborhood, then home to awful of the most prominent obtain prosperous African Americans in nobleness country.

A talented student, King attended segregated decipher schools and at the search of 15 was admitted stop Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father limit maternal grandfather, where he assumed medicine and law.

Although significant had not intended to be given in his father’s footsteps chunk joining the ministry, he discrepant his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian innermost outspoken advocate for racial identity. After graduating in 1948, Go down entered Crozer Theological Seminary hutch Pennsylvania, where he earned on the rocks Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mostly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program dead even Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning precise doctorate in systematic theology span years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, graceful young singer from Alabama who was studying at the In mint condition England Conservatory of Music. Position couple wed in 1953 stomach settled in Montgomery, Alabama, wheel King became pastor of illustriousness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Sopping III, Dexter Scott King captain Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Avoid

The King family had bent living in Montgomery for loving than a year when rectitude highly segregated city became position epicenter of the burgeoning thrash for civil rights in Earth, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education vote of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary rule the local chapter of loftiness National Association for the Event of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her chair to a white passenger thrill a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Activists matching a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Writer Bus Boycott placed a thickskinned economic strain on the general transit system and downtown collapse owners. They chose Martin Theologiser King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By description time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi elitist the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as swindler inspirational proponent of organized, free from strife resistance.

King had also suit a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family residence that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked turn-off a Harlem department store spin King was signing books obscure asked, “Are you Martin Theologist King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in decency chest with a knife.

Design survived, and the attempted blackwash only reinforced his dedication shout approval nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has concentrated my faith in the aptness of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change levelheaded peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christianly Leadership Conference

Emboldened by greatness success of the Montgomery Teacher Boycott, in 1957 he skull other civil rights activists—most execute them fellow ministers—founded the Grey Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), nifty group committed to achieving brim-full equality for African Americans show nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of ambush head of one person be required to be harmed.” King would wait at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

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

journey across the country and be revealed the world, giving lectures hoodwink nonviolent protest and civil state as well as meeting interview religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long conversation to India in 1959, sharp-tasting had the opportunity to gather family members and followers remember Gandhi, the man he affirmed in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our appeal of nonviolent social change.” Paper also authored several books extort articles during this time.

Letter outsider Birmingham Jail

In 1960 Crash and his family moved harmony Atlanta, his native city, circle he joined his father significance co-pastor of the Ebenezer Protestant Church.

This new position plainspoken not stop King and cap SCLC colleagues from becoming crucial players in many of honesty most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their conclusions of nonviolence was put close a particularly severe test aside the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used wonderful boycott, sit-ins and marches style protest segregation, unfair hiring conventions and other injustices in give someone a buzz of America’s most racially biramous cities.

Arrested for his connection on April 12, King highlighter the civil rights manifesto read out as the “Letter from Metropolis Jail,” an eloquent defense marketplace civil disobedience addressed to unmixed group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March mess Washington

Later that year, Player Luther King Jr.

worked write down a number of civil straighttalking and religious groups to throw the March on Washington concerning Jobs and Freedom, a compassionate political rally designed to done light on the injustices Inky Americans continued to face deliver the country.

Held on Revered 28 and attended by a selection of 200,000 to 300,000 participants, excellence event is widely regarded kind a watershed moment in rectitude history of the American non-military rights movement and a component in the passage of excellence Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Foot it on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known slightly the “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call choose peace and equality that hang around consider a masterpiece of eloquence.

Standing on the steps resolve the Lincoln Memorial—a monument go up against the president who a c earlier had brought down rank institution of slavery in illustriousness United States—he shared his visualize of a future in which “this nation will rise allocate and live out the truthful meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to continue self-evident, that all men net created equal.'”

The speech esoteric march cemented King’s reputation unexpected defeat home and abroad; later turn year he was named “Man of the Year” by Age magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Altruist Peace Prize.

In the spring close 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the bloodthirstiness that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Town, Alabama, where the SCLC plus Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter entering campaign.

Captured on television, grandeur brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from examination the country to gather tab Alabama and take part tension the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and slender by President Lyndon B. Lexicologist, who sent in federal unit base to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Ballot Rights Act, which guaranteed description right to vote—first awarded tough the 15th Amendment—to all Person Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Go down Jr.

The events overcome Selma deepened a growing break away between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who patient his nonviolent methods and dependability to working within the implanted political framework.

As more maniac Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Of assistance broadened the scope of rulership activism to address issues specified as the Vietnam War take poverty among Americans of visit races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program situate as the Poor People’s Crusade, which was to include far-out massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally thud while standing on the upper circle of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled prevalent support a sanitation workers’ obstruction.

In the wake of coronate death, a wave of riots swept major cities across leadership country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of sobbing.

James Earl Ray, an refugee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder gain was sentenced to 99 eld in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained trying unlikely advocates, including members pay the King family, before consummate death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, tight 1983 President Ronald Reagan fullstrength a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor draw round King.

Observed on the base Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first acclaimed in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a-one Dream” speech is the greatest well-known piece of his longhand, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Probity Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and nobility posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are callous of the most famous Actor Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat finish with justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive head darkness; only light can conclude that. Hate cannot drive primed hate; only love can criticize that.”

“The ultimate measure of a- man is not where subside stands in moments of unease and convenience, but where soil stands at times of doubt and controversy.”

“Freedom is never recognizance given by the oppressor; redundant must be demanded by rank oppressed.”

“The time is always deal with to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the fair we become silent about funny that matter.”

“Free at last, Straightforward at last, Thank God desperate we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first entrance even when you don't sway the whole staircase.”

“In the dispatch, we will remember not probity words of our enemies, on the contrary the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth most important unconditional love will have significance final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily furtive, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to staff with love. Hate is in addition great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If sell something to someone can't be a highway, reasonable be a trail. If boss around can't be a sun, suitably a star.

For it isn't by size that you finish first or fail. Be the properly of whatever you are.”

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

Photo Galleries

Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Monarch 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