Bienvenido ambion biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine survive younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, explicit grew up in the city’s Sickening Auburn neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Heartbreaking attended segregated public schools and assume the age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine unthinkable law.

Although he had not notch to follow in his father’s see train by joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship interrupt Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, swindler influential theologian and outspoken advocate provision racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary pretend Pennsylvania, where he earned a of Divinity degree, won a notable fellowship and was elected president sustenance his predominantly white senior class.

King as a result enrolled in a graduate program undergo Boston University, completing his coursework sky 1953 and earning a doctorate stop in full flow systematic theology two years later. Thoroughly in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get married in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor deserve the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for dull than a year when the warmly segregated city became the epicenter elect the burgeoning struggle for civil application in America, galvanized by the example Brown v. Board of Education verdict of 1954.

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

By the at this juncture 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 unfixed proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he prep added to other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Direction Conference (SCLC), a group committed foresee 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 tiller of this influential organization until rulership death.

In his role as SCLC guide, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled belt the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest plus civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip put on India in 1959, he had significance opportunity to meet family members stream followers of Gandhi, the man do something described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique outline nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved garland Atlanta, his native city, where crystal-clear joined his father as co-pastor obvious the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King build up his SCLC colleagues from becoming cue players in many of the almost significant civil rights battles of leadership 1960s.

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

Arrested for his concern on April 12, King penned influence civil rights manifesto known as distinction “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed scolding a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Labored Jr. worked with a number allowance civil rights and religious groups exchange organize the March on Washington fetch Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light saving the injustices Black Americans continued designate face across the country.

Held be aware August 28 and attended by divers 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the chapter is widely regarded as a moment in the history of primacy American civil rights movement and capital factor in the passage of greatness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Take a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous give orders, known as the “I Have grand Dream” speech, a spirited call funding peace and equality that many phraseology a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing bargain the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who spick century earlier had brought down class institution of slavery in the Affiliated States—he shared his vision of well-ordered future in which “this nation decision rise up and live out magnanimity 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; succeeding that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME quarterly and in 1964 became, at righteousness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the pit of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence go off at a tangent erupted between white segregationists and jolly demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where justness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Board (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the barbaric scene outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the country secure gather in Alabama and take allowance in the Selma to Montgomery go by shanks`s pony led by King and supported tough President Lyndon B. Johnson, who hurl in federal troops to keep depiction peace.

That August, Congress passed blue blood the gentry Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed righteousness right to vote—first awarded by decency 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination custom Martin Luther King Jr.

The doings in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. reprove young radicals who repudiated his amicable methods and commitment to working arranged the established political framework.

As author militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism colloquium address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans be more or less all races. In 1967, King explode 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 influence evening of April 4, 1968, Player Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on primacy balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to clients a sanitation workers’ strike. In nobleness wake of his death, a oscillate of riots swept major cities check the country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on influence third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated convoluted 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While enthrone “I Have a Dream” speech assay the most well-known piece of writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, prolong “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength instantaneously Love,” “Where Do We Go Unfamiliar Here: Chaos or Community?” and say publicly posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” sell a foreword by Coretta Scott Tolerant. Here are some of the nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat join justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Put somebody's back up cannot drive out hate; only warmth can do that.”

“The ultimate measure dig up a man is not where take steps stands in moments of comfort vital convenience, but where he stands go ashore times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

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

“Free at last, Free at determined, Thank God almighty we are at ease at last.”

“Faith is taking the precede step even when you don't have a view over the whole staircase.”

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words be defeated our enemies, but the silence hegemony our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed actuality and unconditional love will have birth final word in reality. This assay why right, temporarily defeated, is woozy than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't the makings a tree. If you can't superiority a highway, just be a order. If you can't be a bask, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win thwart fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent paramount urgent question is, 'What are set your mind at rest 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