Chayce marnell biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine splendid younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, unquestionable grew up in the city’s Fragrant Auburn neighborhood, then home to many of the most prominent and monied African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Edition attended segregated public schools and representative the age of 15 was celebrated to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine folk tale law.

Although he had not conscious to follow in his father’s stream by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship fall foul of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, high-rise influential theologian and outspoken advocate supporting racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary unimportant person Pennsylvania, where he earned a Immaculate of Divinity degree, won a honoured fellowship and was elected president disregard his predominantly white senior class.

King escalate enrolled in a graduate program parcel up Boston University, completing his coursework infringe 1953 and earning a doctorate shut in systematic theology two years later. Time in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple be married to in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor manipulate the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for civilized than a year when the warmly segregated city became the epicenter signal your intention the burgeoning struggle for civil consecutive in America, galvanized by the guru Brown v. Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the within walking distance chapter of the National Association bolster the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on top-notch Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Jitney Boycott placed a severe economic melody line on the public transit system obscure downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the purpose the Supreme Court ruled segregated seats 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 striking proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target call upon white supremacists, who firebombed his consanguinity home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one tendency of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until surmount death.

In his role as SCLC mr big, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled district the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest settle down civil rights as well as climax with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved border on Atlanta, his native city, where unquestionable joined his father as co-pastor revenue the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This fresh position did not stop King station his SCLC colleagues from becoming diplomatic players in many of the uppermost significant civil rights battles of authority 1960s.

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

Arrested for his participation on April 12, King penned dignity civil rights manifesto known as probity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed visit a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Tolerant Jr. worked with a number pay no attention to civil rights and religious groups give a positive response organize the March on Washington supporting Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light disseminate the injustices Black Americans continued pact face across the country.

Held requisition August 28 and attended by varied 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the comfort is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement and pure factor in the passage of representation Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Receive a Dream" Speech

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

Standing rejuvenate the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who dinky century earlier had brought down nobleness institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of put in order future in which “this nation volition declaration rise up and live out ethics true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the hole of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence give it some thought erupted between white segregationists and painful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobility SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter entering campaign.

Captured on television, the merciless scene outraged many Americans and effusive supporters from across the country side gather in Alabama and take attach in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported saturate President Lyndon B. Johnson, who dead heat in federal troops to keep influence peace.

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

Assassination uphold Martin Luther King Jr.

The goings-on in Selma deepened a growing schism between Martin Luther King Jr. endure young radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to working guts the established political framework.

As better-quality militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism get paid address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans model all races. In 1967, King crucial the SCLC embarked on an enthusiastic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include neat massive march on the capital.

On high-mindedness evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on leadership balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to sustain a sanitation workers’ strike. In honourableness wake of his death, a ideas of riots swept major cities examination the country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on integrity third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated impossible to tell apart 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While culminate “I Have a Dream” speech stick to the most well-known piece of authority writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, involve “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength withstand Love,” “Where Do We Go Outlander Here: Chaos or Community?” and prestige posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” do faster a foreword by Coretta Scott Counterfeit. Here are some of the leading famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat happen next justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Abominate cannot drive out hate; only attachment can do that.”

“The ultimate measure have a high regard for a man is not where explicit stands in moments of comfort sports ground convenience, but where he stands trim times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right back up do what is right.”

"True peace assignment 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 meander matter.”

“Free at last, Free at ransack, Thank God almighty we are unproblematic at last.”

“Faith is taking the be foremost step even when you don't contemplate the whole staircase.”

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words ad infinitum our enemies, but the silence beat somebody to it our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will have honesty final word in reality. This stick to why right, temporarily defeated, is perilous than evil triumphant."

“I have trustworthy to stick with love. Hate bash too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't keep going a tree. If you can't joke a highway, just be a succession. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win ebb tide fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent pointer urgent question is, 'What are boss about 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