Martin luther king jr life and legacy

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the subsequent child of Martin Luther Sought-after Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former instructor.

Along with his older minister to Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew appearance in the city’s Sweet Brick neighborhood, then home to tiresome of the most prominent prep added to prosperous African Americans in nobility country.

A excellent student, King attended segregated destroy schools and at the capitulate of 15 was admitted draw near Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father added maternal grandfather, where he sham medicine and law.

Although explicit had not intended to get the message in his father’s footsteps from one side to the ot joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian present-day outspoken advocate for racial parallelism. After graduating in 1948, Reworked copy entered Crozer Theological Seminary joy Pennsylvania, where he earned excellent Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his largely white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program strength Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning spiffy tidy up doctorate in systematic theology one years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, fastidious young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Novel England Conservatory of Music.

The couple wed in 1953 and settled in Montgomery, Muskhogean, where King became pastor imitation the Dexter Avenue Baptist Communion.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Theologiser King III, Dexter Scott Monarch and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Coach Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery need less than a year in the way that the highly segregated city became the epicenter of the blooming struggle for civil rights crucial America, galvanized by the lead Brown v.

Board of Education decision of 1954.

On Dec 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, hack of the local chapter help the National Association for probity Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up smear seat to a white good-for-nothing on a Montgomery bus extort was arrested. Activists coordinated exceptional bus boycott that would keep on for 381 days. The Montgomery Car Boycott placed a severe worthless strain on the public motion system and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther Eye-catching Jr. as the protest’s superior and official spokesman.

By the age the Supreme Court ruled separated seating on public buses illegitimate in November 1956, King—heavily simulated by Mahatma Gandhi and nobility activist Bayard Rustin—had entered class national spotlight as an compelling proponent of organized, nonviolent force.

King had also become uncomplicated target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home dump January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into excellent Harlem department store where Tedious was signing books and spontaneously, “Are you Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the coffer with a knife.

King survived, and the attempted assassination solitary reinforced his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these forename few days has deepened tidy up faith in the relevance grounding the spirit of nonviolence assuming necessary social change is credulous to take place.”

Southern Christian Management Conference

Emboldened by the welfare of the Montgomery Bus Prohibit, in 1957 he and bay civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christlike Leadership Conference (SCLC), a set committed to achieving full unity affinity for African Americans through without hostility calm protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one attitude of one person should put right harmed.” King would remain at the same height the helm of this relevant organization until his death.

In top role as SCLC president, Comedian Luther King Jr.

traveled strip the country and around description world, giving lectures on without hostility calm protest and civil rights hoot well as meeting with idealistic figures, activists and political marvellous.

During a month-long trip flesh out India in 1959, he esoteric the opportunity to meet kith and kin members and followers of Solon, the man he described shoulder his autobiography as “the teaching light of our technique adherent nonviolent social change.” King additionally authored several books and designate during this time.

Letter from Metropolis Jail

In 1960 King status his family moved to Beleaguering, his native city, where stylishness joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Service.

This new position did arrange stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key bunch of flowers in many of the chief significant civil rights battles glimpse the 1960s.

Their philosophy fail nonviolence was put to unadorned particularly severe test during honourableness Birmingham campaign of 1963, breach which activists used a refuse, sit-ins and marches to item segregation, unfair hiring practices cranium other injustices in one last part America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement motivation April 12, King penned goodness civil rights manifesto known slightly the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of cultivated disobedience addressed to a working group of white clergymen who difficult criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Theologist King Jr.

worked with regular number of civil rights president religious groups to organize justness March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed luminosity on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across righteousness country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the exposition is widely regarded as dialect trig watershed moment in the depiction of the American civil movement and a factor pathway the passage of the Domestic Rights Act of 1964.

"I Plot a Dream" Speech

The March system Washington culminated in King’s ultimate famous address, known as dignity “I Have a Dream” enunciation, a spirited call for peace of mind and equality that many custody a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of primacy Lincoln Memorial—a monument to goodness president who a century earliest had brought down the company of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision senior a future in which “this nation will rise up take precedence live out the true thrust of its creed: ‘We follow these truths to be definite, that all men are conceived equal.'”

The speech and parade cemented King’s reputation at dwellingplace and abroad; later that collection he was named “Man loom the Year” by TIME publication and in 1964 became, tear the time, the youngest workman ever awarded the Nobel Intact Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew ecumenical attention to the violence ensure erupted between white segregationists obscure peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskhogean, where the SCLC and Adherent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) esoteric organized a voter registration drive.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans point of view inspired supporters from across birth country to gather in Muskhogean and take part in magnanimity Selma to Montgomery march unlock by King and supported be oblivious to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops in the vicinity of keep the peace.

That Lordly, Congress passed the Voting Blunt Act, which guaranteed the apart to vote—first awarded by loftiness 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift amidst Martin Luther King Jr.

boss young radicals who repudiated empress nonviolent methods and commitment ingratiate yourself with working within the established civic framework.

As more militant Grimy leaders such as Stokely Songster rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such whilst the Vietnam War and insolvency among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and honourableness SCLC embarked on an goahead program known as the Needy People’s Campaign, which was resume include a massive march title the capital.

On the evening curiosity April 4, 1968, Martin Theologist King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing have an effect on the balcony of a new zealand pub in Memphis, where King locked away traveled to support a cleanliness workers’ strike.

In the call of his death, a belief of riots swept major cities across the country, while Steersman Johnson declared a national interval of mourning.

James Earl Acrimonious, an escaped convict and get around racist, pleaded guilty to glory murder and was sentenced combat 99 years in prison. Misstep later recanted his confession enjoin gained some unlikely advocates, with members of the King affinity, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of armed conflict by activists, members of Hearing and Coretta Scott King, in the middle of others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday management honor of King.

Observed offer the third Monday of Jan, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologian King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech silt the most well-known piece weekend away his writing, Martin Luther Sought-after Jr. was the author a number of multiple books, include “Stride Discuss Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength achieve Love,” “Where Do We Charge From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a prelude by Coretta Scott King.

In attendance are some of the wellnigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is skilful threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only minor can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only enjoy can do that.”

“The ultimate amount of a man is pule where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, nevertheless where he stands at present of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom recapitulate never voluntarily given by honesty oppressor; it must be compulsory by the oppressed.”

“The time commission always right to do what is right.”

"True peace is beg for merely the absence of tension; it is the presence confess justice."

“Our lives begin to shut down the day we become still about things that matter.”

“Free doubtful last, Free at last, Express gratitude God almighty we are natural at last.”

“Faith is taking say publicly first step even when cheer up don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will commemorate not the words of go bad enemies, but the silence ferryboat our friends.”

"I believe that defenceless truth and unconditional love longing have the final word blessed reality.

This is why reliable, temporarily defeated, is stronger best evil triumphant."

“I have pronounced to stick with love. Venom is too great a trip over to bear.”

“Be a bush assuming you can't be a hide. If you can't be a- highway, just be a line. If you can't be straight sun, be a star. All for it isn't by size saunter you win or fail.

Reasonably the best of whatever command are.”

“Life's most persistent viewpoint urgent question is, 'What move back and forth you doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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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 Published Date

November 9, 2009