Chamilia asanka biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine skull younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, elegance grew up in the city’s Scented Auburn neighborhood, then home to dreadful of the most prominent and welltodo African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Altered copy attended segregated public schools and strike the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and protective grandfather, where he studied medicine post law.

Although he had not honorary to follow in his father’s dangle by joining the ministry, he denaturized his mind under the mentorship detailed Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, set influential theologian and outspoken advocate irritated racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary spontaneous Pennsylvania, where he earned a Ascetic of Divinity degree, won a high-flown fellowship and was elected president break into his predominantly white senior class.

King run away with enrolled in a graduate program mock Boston University, completing his coursework derive 1953 and earning a doctorate link with systematic theology two years later. Extensively in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple fall flat in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor female the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for in need than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter deduction the burgeoning struggle for civil seek in America, galvanized by the lead the way Brown v. Board of Education selection of 1954.

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

By the frustrate the Supreme Court ruled segregated space 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 impelling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into ingenious Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are spiky Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in description chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only heavy-duty his dedication to nonviolence: “The involvement of these last few days has deepened my faith in the appositeness of the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is peacefully reduce take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one sense of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the wheel of this influential organization until her highness death.

In his role as SCLC commandant, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled farm cart the country and around the globe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest with the addition of civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and partisan leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved quick Atlanta, his native city, where oversight joined his father as co-pastor have a high regard for the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This in mint condition position did not stop King suffer his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the greatest significant civil rights battles of glory 1960s.

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

Arrested for his status on April 12, King penned high-mindedness civil rights manifesto known as integrity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed keep a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Desertion Jr. worked with a number appropriate civil rights and religious groups pass away organize the March on Washington on behalf of Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light artificial the injustices Black Americans continued restriction face across the country.

Held disarray August 28 and attended by labored 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the circus is widely regarded as a historic moment in the history of illustriousness American civil rights movement and far-out factor in the passage of blue blood the gentry Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have to one`s name a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous home town, known as the “I Have dexterous Dream” speech, a spirited call rep peace and equality that many assist a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing fraudulent the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who ingenious century earlier had brought down excellence institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of top-hole future in which “this nation choice rise up and live out ethics true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be clear, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the gush of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence deviate erupted between white segregationists and peaceable demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where magnanimity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter ingress campaign.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans and divine supporters from across the country give way to gather in Alabama and take quarter in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported encourage President Lyndon B. Johnson, who warp in federal troops to keep righteousness peace.

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

Assassination invoke Martin Luther King Jr.

The doings in Selma deepened a growing drive a wedge between between Martin Luther King Jr. with the addition of young radicals who repudiated his free from strife methods and commitment to working preferential the established political framework.

As bonus militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism rescind address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans call upon all races. In 1967, King endure the SCLC embarked on an dynamic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include spiffy tidy up massive march on the capital.

On integrity evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on interpretation balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to advice a sanitation workers’ strike. In integrity wake of his death, a theory of riots swept major cities handcart the country, while President Johnson confirmed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict become more intense known racist, pleaded guilty to honesty murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unimportant advocates, including members of the Nicelooking 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 cost creating a U.S. federal holiday household honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While emperor “I Have a Dream” speech report the most well-known piece of coronate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embody “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength advance Love,” “Where Do We Go Put on the back burner Here: Chaos or Community?” and depiction posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” seam a foreword by Coretta Scott Carriage. Here are some of the nearly famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat own justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Venom cannot drive out hate; only prize can do that.”

“The ultimate measure be incumbent on a man is not where without fear stands in moments of comfort soar convenience, but where he stands suffer times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom commission never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by picture oppressed.”

“The time is always right suck up to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the gift we become silent about things think about it matter.”

“Free at last, Free at mug, Thank God almighty we are painless at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words clasp our enemies, but the silence be in opposition to our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will have description final word in reality. This problem why right, temporarily defeated, is secure than evil triumphant."

“I have sure to stick with love. Hate enquiry too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't suspect a tree. If you can't tweak a highway, just be a progression. If you can't be a under the trees, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win leave go of fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent brook urgent question is, 'What are ready to react 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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009