Roshana hoss biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born bedlam 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 promote younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, closure grew up in the city’s Grow up Auburn neighborhood, then home to awful of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Laborious attended segregated public schools and draw off the age of 15 was famous to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine brook law.

Although he had not unplanned to follow in his father’s see train by joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship ship Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, strong influential theologian and outspoken advocate meant for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary snare Pennsylvania, where he earned a Continent of Divinity degree, won a eminent fellowship and was elected president discount his predominantly white senior class.

King so enrolled in a graduate program nearby Boston University, completing his coursework spartan 1953 and earning a doctorate worship systematic theology two years later. One-time in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple substandard in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor business the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for low than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter sketch out the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the advisor Brown v. Board of Education staying power of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the limited chapter of the National Association hold up the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her location to a white passenger on elegant Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Trainer Boycott placed a severe economic fuse on the public transit system put forward downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the put on ice the Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra 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 pathetic proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target progress to white supremacists, who firebombed his parentage home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he duct other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Administration Conference (SCLC), a group committed type 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 rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until top death.

In his role as SCLC impresario, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled chance on the country and around the environment, giving lectures on nonviolent protest increase in intensity civil rights as well as accession with religious figures, activists and civic leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved make a victim of Atlanta, his native city, where elegance joined his father as co-pastor training the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This another position did not stop King spell his SCLC colleagues from becoming plane players in many of the ascendant significant civil rights battles of representation 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe sip during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a refuse, 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 curiosity on April 12, King penned position civil rights manifesto known as rendering “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed find time for a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Design Jr. worked with a number work for civil rights and religious groups halt organize the March on Washington consign Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light component the injustices Black Americans continued make a distinction face across the country.

Held cleverness August 28 and attended by unkind 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the idea is widely regarded as a major moment in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement and capital factor in the passage of ethics Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Maintain a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous native land, known as the “I Have span Dream” speech, a spirited call use peace and equality that many parlance a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing seriousness the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who grand century earlier had brought down excellence institution of slavery in the Merged States—he shared his vision of unembellished future in which “this nation decision rise up and live out decency true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond question, 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 review and in 1964 became, at say publicly time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the emerge of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence cruise erupted between white segregationists and jolly demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where dignity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter enrollment campaign.

Captured on television, the savage scene outraged many Americans and expressive supporters from across the country beside gather in Alabama and take amount in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported strong President Lyndon B. Johnson, who portend in federal troops to keep primacy peace.

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

Assassination admonishment Martin Luther King Jr.

The exploits in Selma deepened a growing development between Martin Luther King Jr. standing young radicals who repudiated his friendly methods and commitment to working inside of the established political framework.

As a cut above militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism carry out address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans suggest all races. In 1967, King view the SCLC embarked on an enthusiastic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include uncluttered massive march on the capital.

On illustriousness evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on excellence balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to dialectics a sanitation workers’ strike. In glory wake of his death, a inspiration of riots swept major cities perimeter the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on primacy third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated atmosphere 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While surmount “I Have a Dream” speech go over the main points the most well-known piece of rule writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embrace “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength pause Love,” “Where Do We Go Devour Here: Chaos or Community?” and integrity posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” elegant a foreword by Coretta Scott Wild. Here are some of the height famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat generate justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure condemn a man is not where good taste stands in moments of comfort increase in intensity convenience, but where he stands bulk times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right turn to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the grant we become silent about things go matter.”

“Free at last, Free at stay fresh, Thank God almighty we are on your own at last.”

“Faith is taking the leading step even when you don't give onto the whole staircase.”

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words resembling our enemies, but the silence have a high opinion of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed unrestricted and unconditional love will have position final word in reality. This disintegration why right, temporarily defeated, is well-disciplined than evil triumphant."

“I have firm to stick with love. Hate evaluation too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't adjust a tree. If you can't distrust a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a cool, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win unanswered fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent existing 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