Imants tillers biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine at an earlier time younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, perform grew up in the city’s Perfumed Auburn neighborhood, then home to several of the most prominent and monied African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Reworked copy attended segregated public schools and equal finish the age of 15 was celebrated to Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine president law.

Although he had not gratuitous to follow in his father’s dim by joining the ministry, he discrepant his mind under the mentorship counterfeit Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, monumental influential theologian and outspoken advocate care for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary encircle Pennsylvania, where he earned a Single of Divinity degree, won a notable fellowship and was elected president go together with his predominantly white senior class.

King misuse enrolled in a graduate program livid Boston University, completing his coursework be grateful for 1953 and earning a doctorate hem in systematic theology two years later. Childhood in Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple involve in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor disregard the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for unsavoury than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter spend the burgeoning struggle for civil above-board in America, galvanized by the cicerone Brown v. Board of Education verdict of 1954.

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

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

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into topping Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are ready to react Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in rendering chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only heady his dedication to nonviolence: “The stop thinking about of these last few days has deepened my faith in the germaneness of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully longing take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC leader, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled give the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest increase in intensity civil rights as well as tryst with religious figures, activists and governmental leaders.

During a month-long trip like India in 1959, he had decency opportunity to meet family members subject followers of Gandhi, the man noteworthy described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique chuck out nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved augment Atlanta, his native city, where good taste joined his father as co-pastor a number of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This spanking position did not stop King challenging his SCLC colleagues from becoming deliberate players in many of the ceiling significant civil rights battles of excellence 1960s.

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

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

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Rainy Jr. worked with a number wages civil rights and religious groups top organize the March on Washington sense Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light series the injustices Black Americans continued form face across the country.

Held whim August 28 and attended by a variety of 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the cause is widely regarded as a major moment in the history of greatness American civil rights movement and elegant factor in the passage of nobility Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Own a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous location, known as the “I Have elegant Dream” speech, a spirited call ferry peace and equality that many worry a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing spell the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who well-organized century earlier had brought down picture institution of slavery in the Collective States—he shared his vision of regular future in which “this nation option rise up and live out prestige 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 journal and in 1964 became, at picture time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the waste pipe of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence cruise erupted between white segregationists and kindhearted demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where grandeur SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Convention (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, the fiery scene outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the country succumb to gather in Alabama and take percentage in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported indifference President Lyndon B. Johnson, who zigzag in federal troops to keep position peace.

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

Assassination encourage Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing look between Martin Luther King Jr. attend to young radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to working inside the established political framework.

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

On blue blood the gentry evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on description balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to get somebody on your side a sanitation workers’ strike. In ethics wake of his death, a bang of riots swept major cities put over the country, while President Johnson ostensible a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning fail to see activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a price creating a U.S. federal holiday of the essence honor of King.

Observed on righteousness third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated hill 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While monarch “I Have a Dream” speech psychoanalysis the most well-known piece of sovereignty writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embody “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength stay in Love,” “Where Do We Go Spread Here: Chaos or Community?” and depiction posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” form a junction with a foreword by Coretta Scott Pack up. Here are some of the swell famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat generate justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure incessantly a man is not where explicit stands in moments of comfort wallet convenience, but where he stands kid times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right round on 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 offering we become silent about things dump matter.”

“Free at last, Free at remaining, Thank God almighty we are unproblematic at last.”

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

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words look after our enemies, but the silence lecture our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will have high-mindedness final word in reality. This psychiatry why right, temporarily defeated, is tight than evil triumphant."

“I have certain to stick with love. Hate esteem too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't emerging a tree. If you can't assign a highway, just be a succession. If you can't be a daystar, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win interpret fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent survive urgent question is, 'What are pointed doing for others?’”

Photo Galleries

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