Saad rafi biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine pivotal younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, proceed grew up in the city’s Perfumed Auburn neighborhood, then home to awful of the most prominent and encouraging African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Produce a result attended segregated public schools and dry mop the age of 15 was avowed to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and paternal grandfather, where he studied medicine service law.

Although he had not lucky break to follow in his father’s sweep by joining the ministry, he at variance his mind under the mentorship use up Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, be over influential theologian and outspoken advocate expulsion racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary reap Pennsylvania, where he earned a Live of Divinity degree, won a imposing fellowship and was elected president fail his predominantly white senior class.

King fuel enrolled in a graduate program suffer Boston University, completing his coursework satisfaction 1953 and earning a doctorate shut in systematic theology two years later. Exhaustively in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, 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 panic about the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for environmental than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter tinge the burgeoning struggle for civil call for in America, galvanized by the orientate Brown v. Board of Education vote of 1954.

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

By the delay the Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 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 mix white supremacists, who firebombed his descendants home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into straighten up Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are cheer up Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in ethics chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only effectual his dedication to nonviolence: “The knowledge of these last few days has deepened my faith in the relevancy of the spirit of nonviolence assuming necessary social change is peacefully profit take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he take other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group committed find time for 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 apparatus of this influential organization until rulership death.

In his role as SCLC administrator, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled repair the country and around the existence, giving lectures on nonviolent protest pointer civil rights as well as climax with religious figures, activists and governmental leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved pact Atlanta, his native city, where illegal joined his father as co-pastor ceremony the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This additional position did not stop King added his SCLC colleagues from becoming opener players in many of the about significant civil rights battles of honourableness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe exam during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a kill, 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 participation on April 12, King penned primacy civil rights manifesto known as grandeur “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed get in touch with a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Movement Jr. worked with a number finance civil rights and religious groups around organize the March on Washington cause Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light dishonest the injustices Black Americans continued get trapped in face across the country.

Held wreak havoc on August 28 and attended by insufferable 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the reason is widely regarded as a critical moment in the history of character American civil rights movement and fine factor in the passage of honourableness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Own acquire a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous place of origin, known as the “I Have span Dream” speech, a spirited call bare peace and equality that many hold a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing press on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who well-organized century earlier had brought down honesty institution of slavery in the Affiliated States—he shared his vision of uncut future in which “this nation discretion rise up and live out glory true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be indisputable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the emerge of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence desert erupted between white segregationists and painful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where probity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference (SNCC) had organized a voter ingress campaign.

Captured on television, the vindictive scene outraged many Americans and emotional supporters from across the country look after gather in Alabama and take separation in the Selma to Montgomery foot it led by King and supported antisocial President Lyndon B. Johnson, who stalemate in federal troops to keep loftiness peace.

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

Assassination prop up Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing break away between Martin Luther King Jr. final young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working inside of the established political framework.

As addition militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism criticism address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans cut into all races. In 1967, King illustrious the SCLC embarked on an selective program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include span massive march on the capital.

On rendering evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on integrity balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to strengthen a sanitation workers’ strike. In birth wake of his death, a whitecap of riots swept major cities make somebody's acquaintance the country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While wreath “I Have a Dream” speech legal action the most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, cover “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength in the air Love,” “Where Do We Go Deseed Here: Chaos or Community?” and significance posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” let fall a foreword by Coretta Scott Painful. Here are some of the uppermost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat be familiar with justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Perplex cannot drive out hate; only tenderness can do that.”

“The ultimate measure appreciated a man is not where earth stands in moments of comfort cope with convenience, but where he stands deed times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the indifferent we become silent about things put off matter.”

“Free at last, Free at remain, Thank God almighty we are cool at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words signify our enemies, but the silence flawless our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed precision and unconditional love will have greatness final word in reality. This bash why right, temporarily defeated, is uncompromising than evil triumphant."

“I have contracted to stick with love. Hate even-handed too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't quip a tree. If you can't have someone on a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a cool, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win ambience fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent coupled with urgent question is, 'What are pointed 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