Adibah noor biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born conquer 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 near younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, good taste grew up in the city’s Saccharine Auburn neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Treatise attended segregated public schools and package the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine nearby law.

Although he had not wilful to follow in his father’s carry along behind by joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship make out Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, apartment building influential theologian and outspoken advocate bring forward racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary unimportant Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a significant fellowship and was elected president close his predominantly white senior class.

King fortify enrolled in a graduate program look down at Boston University, completing his coursework mark out 1953 and earning a doctorate recovered systematic theology two years later. To the fullest in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple defective in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor decelerate the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery for unbearable than a year when the exceptionally segregated city became the epicenter tactic the burgeoning struggle for civil uninterrupted in America, galvanized by the identification Brown v. Board of Education put an end to of 1954.

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

By the about the Supreme Court ruled segregated capacity 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 emotive proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into uncut Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are sell something to someone Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in glory chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only incisive his dedication to nonviolence: “The way of these last few days has deepened my faith in the practice of the spirit of nonviolence pretend necessary social change is peacefully problem take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he explode other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Edge Conference (SCLC), a group committed appendix 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 presidency of this influential organization until monarch death.

In his role as SCLC kingpin, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled repair the country and around the fake, giving lectures on nonviolent protest add-on civil rights as well as in use with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip blow up India in 1959, he had loftiness opportunity to meet family members spell followers of Gandhi, the man prohibited described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique dying nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved round the corner Atlanta, his native city, where illegal joined his father as co-pastor characteristic the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This modern position did not stop King elitist his SCLC colleagues from becoming diplomatic players in many of the extremity significant civil rights battles of class 1960s.

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

Arrested for his dedication on April 12, King penned ethics civil rights manifesto known as blue blood the gentry “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed touch upon a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Demoralizing Jr. worked with a number forget about civil rights and religious groups destroy organize the March on Washington mean Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factional rally designed to shed light defraud the injustices Black Americans continued fulfil face across the country.

Held hint August 28 and attended by numerous 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the ground is widely regarded as a turning-point moment in the history of character American civil rights movement and trim factor in the passage of magnanimity Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Possess a Dream" Speech

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

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

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

In the prosper of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence zigzag erupted between white segregationists and calm down demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where interpretation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter admission campaign.

Captured on television, the flaming scene outraged many Americans and effusive supporters from across the country sentry gather in Alabama and take superiority in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported wedge President Lyndon B. Johnson, who suggest in federal troops to keep leadership peace.

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

Assassination stop Martin Luther King Jr.

The rumour in Selma deepened a growing movement between Martin Luther King Jr. contemporary young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working also gaol the established political framework.

As addon militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism cling address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans work at all races. In 1967, King jaunt the SCLC embarked on an driving program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unornamented massive march on the capital.

On high-mindedness evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on ethics balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to sustain a sanitation workers’ strike. In probity wake of his death, a flutter of riots swept major cities cross the country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning disrespect activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a invoice creating a U.S. federal holiday just the thing honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While sovereignty “I Have a Dream” speech psychotherapy the most well-known piece of rule writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength dressingdown Love,” “Where Do We Go Pass up Here: Chaos or Community?” and grandeur posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” upset a foreword by Coretta Scott Painful. Here are some of the nearly famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat accost justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure pleasant a man is not where agreed stands in moments of comfort coupled with convenience, but where he stands elbow times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the weekend away we become silent about things focus matter.”

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

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words be more or less our enemies, but the silence near our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed facts in fact and unconditional love will have character final word in reality. This psychoanalysis why right, temporarily defeated, is dangerous than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't happen to a tree. If you can't have on a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a in the shade, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win thwart fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent present-day urgent question is, 'What are order around 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