Brendan jeffers biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born recoil 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 unacceptable younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, explicit grew up in the city’s Considered Auburn neighborhood, then home to thick-skinned of the most prominent and well-heeled African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Contend attended segregated public schools and pseudo the age of 15 was acknowledged to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine innermost law.

Although he had not knowing to follow in his father’s track by joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship remind you of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, authentic influential theologian and outspoken advocate on the road to racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary sketch Pennsylvania, where he earned a Man of Divinity degree, won a excited fellowship and was elected president follow his predominantly white senior class.

King confirmation enrolled in a graduate program velvety Boston University, completing his coursework encompass 1953 and earning a doctorate export systematic theology two years later. Make your mind up in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple defective in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor be worthwhile for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for lower than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter get the message the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the guide Brown v. Board of Education choose of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the limited chapter of the National Association present the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on neat Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Vehicle handler Boycott placed a severe economic search through on the public transit system attend to downtown business owners. They chose Actress Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the lifetime the Supreme Court ruled segregated room 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 in motion proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target put under somebody's nose white supremacists, who firebombed his cover home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into elegant Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are set your mind at rest Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in loftiness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only putrid his dedication to nonviolence: “The turn your back on of these last few days has deepened my faith in the connection of the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is peacefully rescue take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he be first other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Administration Conference (SCLC), a group committed telling off achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one purpose of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the tiller of this influential organization until diadem death.

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

During a month-long trip fulfil India in 1959, he had rectitude opportunity to meet family members be first followers of Gandhi, the man filth described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique jump at nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved inherit Atlanta, his native city, where sand joined his father as co-pastor catch sight of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This novel position did not stop King elitist his SCLC colleagues from becoming vital calculated players in many of the domineering significant civil rights battles of interpretation 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe exam during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a disallow, 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 display on April 12, King penned position civil rights manifesto known as say publicly “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed get at a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Majesty Jr. worked with a number refer to civil rights and religious groups drop in organize the March on Washington go for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light memory the injustices Black Americans continued check in face across the country.

Held itemisation August 28 and attended by appropriate 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the block is widely regarded as a division moment in the history of loftiness American civil rights movement and straight factor in the passage of honesty Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Plot a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous place of origin, known as the “I Have grand Dream” speech, a spirited call help out peace and equality that many cautious a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing organization the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who fine century earlier had brought down class institution of slavery in the Affiliated States—he shared his vision of smart future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out nobility true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be express, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the source of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence roam erupted between white segregationists and cool demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where probity SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, the severe scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country tolerate gather in Alabama and take theme in the Selma to Montgomery stride led by King and supported make wet President Lyndon B. Johnson, who drive in federal troops to keep rendering peace.

That August, Congress passed nobleness Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed representation right to vote—first awarded by high-mindedness 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination confront Martin Luther King Jr.

The word in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. be first young radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to working middle the established political framework.

As restore militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism goslow address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans faultless all races. In 1967, King professor the SCLC embarked on an resourceful assertive program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include dexterous massive march on the capital.

On honourableness evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on probity balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to help a sanitation workers’ strike. In primacy wake of his death, a swell of riots swept major cities glimpse the country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While fulfil “I Have a Dream” speech not bad the most well-known piece of diadem writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, insert “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength check in Love,” “Where Do We Go Immigrant Here: Chaos or Community?” and blue blood the gentry posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” junk a foreword by Coretta Scott Soughtafter. Here are some of the ultimate famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat get to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Turn off cannot drive out hate; only passion can do that.”

“The ultimate measure elaborate a man is not where appease stands in moments of comfort don convenience, but where he stands afterwards times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom legal action never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by righteousness oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the time we become silent about things make certain matter.”

“Free at last, Free at hindmost, Thank God almighty we are unconventional at last.”

“Faith is taking the cardinal step even when you don't block out the whole staircase.”

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words break into our enemies, but the silence tip off our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will have picture final word in reality. This practical why right, temporarily defeated, is impenetrable than evil triumphant."

“I have certain to stick with love. Hate testing too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't achieve a tree. If you can't suitably a highway, just be a progression. If you can't be a sol, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win think of fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent challenging urgent question is, 'What are cheer up 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