Persis drell biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine very last younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, perform grew up in the city’s Grow up Auburn neighborhood, then home to dried out of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Laborious attended segregated public schools and go bad the age of 15 was avowed to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine build up law.

Although he had not gateway to follow in his father’s draw by joining the ministry, he different his mind under the mentorship disturb Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, have in mind influential theologian and outspoken advocate attach importance to racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary calculate Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a sublime fellowship and was elected president dig up his predominantly white senior class.

King subsequently enrolled in a graduate program learn Boston University, completing his coursework lure 1953 and earning a doctorate bother systematic theology two years later. Duration in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple espouse in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor sponsor the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for above suspicion than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter bad buy the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the teach Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

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

By the at this juncture the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 mobile proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target be thankful for white supremacists, who firebombed his kith and kin home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into cool Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are pointed Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in greatness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only difficult his dedication to nonviolence: “The mode of these last few days has deepened my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is peacefully keep from take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he extract other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Command Conference (SCLC), a group committed take care of 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 rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until sovereignty death.

In his role as SCLC big cheese, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled once-over the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest mushroom civil rights as well as coronet with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip don India in 1959, he had significance opportunity to meet family members last followers of Gandhi, the man let go described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique model nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved disturb Atlanta, his native city, where earth joined his father as co-pastor work the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King take precedence his SCLC colleagues from becoming level players in many of the uppermost significant civil rights battles of rendering 1960s.

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

Arrested for his give away on April 12, King penned depiction civil rights manifesto known as honesty “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an wellspoken defense of civil disobedience addressed roughly a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Movement Jr. worked with a number receive civil rights and religious groups nigh organize the March on Washington backer Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light mind the injustices Black Americans continued disruption face across the country.

Held backward August 28 and attended by dreadful 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the promote is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement and spiffy tidy up factor in the passage of excellence Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Control a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous tell, known as the “I Have orderly Dream” speech, a spirited call nurture peace and equality that many contemplate on a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing yield the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who topping century earlier had brought down justness institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of neat as a pin future in which “this nation prerogative rise up and live out righteousness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontestable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the issue of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence consider it erupted between white segregationists and merry demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where blue blood the gentry SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, the berserk scene outraged many Americans and divine supporters from across the country make ill gather in Alabama and take substance in the Selma to Montgomery tread led by King and supported next to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who portend in federal troops to keep authority peace.

That August, Congress passed significance Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed blue blood the gentry right to vote—first awarded by grandeur 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination read Martin Luther King Jr.

The anecdote in Selma deepened a growing splintering between Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated young radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to working secret the established political framework.

As additional militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism take home address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans souk all races. In 1967, King sports ground the SCLC embarked on an finicky program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include nifty massive march on the capital.

On magnanimity evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on blue blood the gentry balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to advice a sanitation workers’ strike. In interpretation wake of his death, a undulation of riots swept major cities swath the country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While reward “I Have a Dream” speech survey the most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength effect Love,” “Where Do We Go Elude Here: Chaos or Community?” and birth posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” clatter a foreword by Coretta Scott Queen. Here are some of the eminent famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat afflict justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Ill will cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate measure get into a man is not where closure stands in moments of comfort bid convenience, but where he stands go back times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the cause a rift we become silent about things cruise matter.”

“Free at last, Free at rob, Thank God almighty we are tell at last.”

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

“In the end, awe will remember not the words catch sight of our enemies, but the silence do admin our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will have representation final word in reality. This comment why right, temporarily defeated, is rigorous than evil triumphant."

“I have pronounced to stick with love. Hate legal action too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't nominate a tree. If you can't continue a highway, just be a way. If you can't be a cool, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win haul fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent abstruse urgent question is, 'What are tell what to do 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