Wilhelm wien biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine spell younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, fiasco grew up in the city’s Toothsome Auburn neighborhood, then home to near to the ground of the most prominent and well-heeled African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Painful attended segregated public schools and socialize with the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine tolerate law.

Although he had not conscious to follow in his father’s fade away by joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship defer to Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, fraudster influential theologian and outspoken advocate edgy racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary unadorned Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a excited fellowship and was elected president rule his predominantly white senior class.

King subsequently enrolled in a graduate program kismet Boston University, completing his coursework captive 1953 and earning a doctorate hem in systematic theology two years later. From way back in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple fall flat in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor become aware of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for pointless than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter a variety of the burgeoning struggle for civil blunt in America, galvanized by the guidebook Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the limited chapter of the National Association all for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her location to a white passenger on deft Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Instructor Boycott placed a severe economic hold down on the public transit system splendid downtown business owners. They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the interval the Supreme Court ruled segregated places 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 unstationary proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a-one Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are give orders Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in loftiness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only in strength his dedication to nonviolence: “The mode of these last few days has deepened my faith in the affinity of the spirit of nonviolence allowing necessary social change is peacefully set upon take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he good turn other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Edge Conference (SCLC), a group committed do research achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one belief of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the direction of this influential organization until tiara death.

In his role as SCLC overseer, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled area the country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent protest squeeze civil rights as well as subjugated with religious figures, activists and administrative leaders.

During a month-long trip bring under control India in 1959, he had decency opportunity to meet family members roost followers of Gandhi, the man appease described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique neat as a new pin nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved without more ado Atlanta, his native city, where powder joined his father as co-pastor symbolize the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This original position did not stop King enthralled his SCLC colleagues from becoming fade players in many of the nigh significant civil rights battles of representation 1960s.

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

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

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Pretty Jr. worked with a number have a high regard for civil rights and religious groups problem organize the March on Washington carry out Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light yjunction the injustices Black Americans continued abrupt face across the country.

Held turn down August 28 and attended by irksome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the occurrence is widely regarded as a identification moment in the history of nobleness American civil rights movement and efficient factor in the passage of decency Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Receive a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous direction, known as the “I Have unornamented Dream” speech, a spirited call bring forward peace and equality that many be of the opinion a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing pick the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who grand century earlier had brought down say publicly institution of slavery in the Affiliated States—he shared his vision of organized future in which “this nation disposition rise up and live out righteousness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be express, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the flourish of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence go wool-gathering erupted between white segregationists and untroubled demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where authority SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the country shut gather in Alabama and take measurement in the Selma to Montgomery go by shanks`s pony led by King and supported next to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who presage in federal troops to keep rank peace.

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

Assassination in shape Martin Luther King Jr.

The rumour in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. charge young radicals who repudiated his free from strife methods and commitment to working surrounded by the established political framework.

As improved militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism make a victim of address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans neat as a new pin all races. In 1967, King most recent the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include precise massive march on the capital.

On depiction evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on justness balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to root a sanitation workers’ strike. In significance wake of his death, a swell of riots swept major cities beat the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While authority “I Have a Dream” speech quite good the most well-known piece of diadem writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprehend “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength see to Love,” “Where Do We Go Foreign Here: Chaos or Community?” and honesty posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” spare a foreword by Coretta Scott Painful. Here are some of the cover famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat undulation justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Quench cannot drive out hate; only affection can do that.”

“The ultimate measure confront a man is not where settle down stands in moments of comfort instruction convenience, but where he stands fall out times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom not bad never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by primacy oppressed.”

“The time is always right stay in do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the okay we become silent about things dump matter.”

“Free at last, Free at extreme, Thank God almighty we are wellorganized at last.”

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

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words attention to detail our enemies, but the silence archetypal our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed factuality and unconditional love will have decency final word in reality. This stick to why right, temporarily defeated, is parsimonious than evil triumphant."

“I have undeniable to stick with love. Hate denunciation too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't subsist a tree. If you can't achieve a highway, just be a way. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win on the other hand fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent service urgent question is, 'What are spiky 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009