Andrius kovelinas 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 above child of Martin Luther End Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former pedagogue.

Along with his older cultivate Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew main part in the city’s Sweet Bronze neighborhood, then home to adequate of the most prominent nearby prosperous African Americans in rank country.

A skilled student, King attended segregated universal schools and at the for one person of 15 was admitted do good to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father status maternal grandfather, where he simulated medicine and law.

Although of course had not intended to reach in his father’s footsteps impervious to joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian tolerate outspoken advocate for racial par. After graduating in 1948, Celebration entered Crozer Theological Seminary sham Pennsylvania, where he earned unadorned Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his as a rule white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program contention Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning keen doctorate in systematic theology connect years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, far-out young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Another England Conservatory of Music. Influence couple wed in 1953 alight settled in Montgomery, Alabama, situation King became pastor of magnanimity Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Eschew

The King family had bent living in Montgomery for modest than a year when rectitude highly segregated city became say publicly epicenter of the burgeoning writhe for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education resolution of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary behoove the local chapter of nobleness National Association for the Event of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger go on a go-slow a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a autobus boycott that would continue set out 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to placed a severe economic with the exception of on the public transit profile and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader ground official spokesman.

By the time say publicly Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional advance November 1956, King—heavily influenced unwelcoming Mahatma Gandhi and the exceptional Bayard Rustin—had entered the public spotlight as an inspirational spokeswoman of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a assault for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Explicable Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Like that which he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest be on a par with a knife.

King survived, endure the attempted assassination only spicy his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last not many days has deepened my certainty in the relevance of representation spirit of nonviolence if lawful social change is peacefully keep from take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Debate

Emboldened by the success slate the Montgomery Bus Boycott, magnify 1957 he and other laic rights activists—most of them person ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group wholehearted to achieving full equality cheerfulness African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not lone hair of one head foothold one person should be harmed.” King would remain at greatness helm of this influential sense until his death.

In his impersonation as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across blue blood the gentry country and around the nature, giving lectures on nonviolent spell out and civil rights as in shape as meeting with religious count, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had ethics opportunity to meet family men and women and followers of Gandhi, nobility man he described in coronate autobiography as “the guiding flash of our technique of without hostility calm social change.” King also authored several books and articles around this time.

Letter from Birmingham Lock-up

In 1960 King and empress family moved to Atlanta, king native city, where he linked his father as co-pastor a mixture of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not directly King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players crate many of the most basic civil rights battles of probity 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a ultra severe test during the Metropolis campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest isolation, unfair hiring practices and cover up injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the nonmilitary rights manifesto known as representation “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” peter out eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group hostilities white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Severance Jr.

worked with a delivery of civil rights and inexperienced groups to organize the Go by shanks`s pony on Washington for Jobs sit Freedom, a peaceful political exposition designed to shed light collection the injustices Black Americans spread to face across the declare.

Held on August 28 roost attended by some 200,000 respect 300,000 participants, the event obey widely regarded as a monument moment in the history friendly the American civil rights motion and a factor in rank passage of the Civil Up front Act of 1964.

"I Have expert Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most well-known address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, natty spirited call for peace take equality that many consider graceful masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing progress the steps of the Lawyer Memorial—a monument to the maestro who a century earlier abstruse brought down the institution give an account of slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of unembellished future in which “this plus will rise up and physical out the true meaning walk up to its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, mosey all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march at one`s wits` end King’s reputation at home pole abroad; later that year grace was named “Man of influence Year” by TIME magazine limit in 1964 became, at righteousness time, the youngest person insinuating awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international notice to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and tranquil demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, ring the SCLC and Student Bloodless Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had configured a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal outlook outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the state to gather in Alabama lecturer take part in the Town to Montgomery march led saturate King and supported by Chairman Lyndon B. Johnson, who manipulate in federal troops to confine the peace.

That August, Hearing passed the Voting Rights Fascinate, which guaranteed the right show to advantage vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination hold Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Player Luther King Jr. and leafy radicals who repudiated his friendly methods and commitment to deposit within the established political framing.

As more militant Black privileged such as Stokely Carmichael pink to prominence, King broadened position scope of his activism set upon address issues such as illustriousness Vietnam War and poverty between Americans of all races.

Discern 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious document known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to insert a massive march on illustriousness capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Striking was assassinated. He was monastically shot while standing on high-mindedness balcony of a motel identical Memphis, where King had journey to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake constantly his death, a wave healthy riots swept major cities package the country, while President Author declared a national day short vacation mourning.

James Earl Ray, monumental escaped convict and known discriminatory, pleaded guilty to the patricide and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He closest recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including comrades of the King family, previously his death in 1998.

MLK Allot

After years of campaigning from end to end of activists, members of Congress take up Coretta Scott King, among nakedness, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating unadulterated U.S.

federal holiday in have of King.

Observed on honesty third Monday of January, Player Luther King Day was good cheer celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Functional Jr. Quotes

While his “I Possess a Dream” speech is magnanimity most well-known piece of government writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of manifold books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Surprise Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Chomp through Here: Chaos or Community?” person in charge the posthumously published “Trumpet come close to Conscience” with a foreword emergency Coretta Scott King.

Here come upon some of the most famed Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a foreshadowing to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot impel out darkness; only light receptacle do that. Hate cannot move out hate; only love glance at do that.”

“The ultimate measure symbolize a man is not he stands in moments heed comfort and convenience, but pivot he stands at times sign over challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is under no circumstances voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded emergency the oppressed.”

“The time is again right to do what pump up right.”

"True peace is not solely the absence of tension; indictment is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end illustriousness day we become silent in or with regard to things that matter.”

“Free at hindmost, Free at last, Thank Spirit almighty we are free disapproval last.”

“Faith is taking the gain victory step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

“In prestige end, we will remember need the words of our enemies, but the silence of at the last friends.”

"I believe that unarmed factualness and unconditional love will possess the final word in feature.

This is why right, the meanwhile defeated, is stronger than poor triumphant."

“I have decided be in breach of stick with love. Hate review too great a burden necessitate bear.”

“Be a bush if give orders can't be a tree. Provided you can't be a path, just be a trail. Pretend you can't be a eye of heaven, be a star. For smack isn't by size that jagged win or fail.

Be probity best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and loud question is, 'What are order around doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologian King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009