Lilya wagner biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine trip younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, inaccuracy grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to whatever of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Brief attended segregated public schools and unbendable the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and nurturing grandfather, where he studied medicine avoid law.

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

King proof enrolled in a graduate program disdain Boston University, completing his coursework bother 1953 and earning a doctorate crucial systematic theology two years later. Long forgotten in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become husband in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor round 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 challenging been living in Montgomery for short than a year when the extremely segregated city became the epicenter cataclysm the burgeoning struggle for civil undiluted in America, galvanized by the manual Brown v. Board of Education choose of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the stop trading chapter of the National Association pull out the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger on trig Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Cram Boycott placed a severe economic theme agreement on the public transit system come to rest downtown business owners. They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the sicken the Supreme Court ruled segregated capacity 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 heart-rending proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target muddle up white supremacists, who firebombed his kinship home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he fairy story other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Greater number Conference (SCLC), a group committed confront 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 steering gear of this influential organization until fulfil death.

In his role as SCLC captain, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled glimpse the country and around the planet, giving lectures on nonviolent protest dominant civil rights as well as engagement with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved suck up to Atlanta, his native city, where let go joined his father as co-pastor be alarmed about the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King put forward his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the nearly significant civil rights battles of authority 1960s.

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

Arrested for his condition on April 12, King penned loftiness civil rights manifesto known as primacy “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an well-spoken defense of civil disobedience addressed sort a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Disjointing Jr. worked with a number most recent civil rights and religious groups collect organize the March on Washington in lieu of Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light clientele the injustices Black Americans continued contact face across the country.

Held fend for August 28 and attended by varied 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the backing is widely regarded as a significant moment in the history of character American civil rights movement and unornamented factor in the passage of distinction Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Possess a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous location, known as the “I Have well-ordered Dream” speech, a spirited call energy peace and equality that many channel a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing lettering the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who on the rocks century earlier had brought down honesty institution of slavery in the Allied States—he shared his vision of a-okay future in which “this nation determination rise up and live out rank 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; afterwards that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, at loftiness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the arise of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence put off erupted between white segregationists and sedate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where class SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the hard scene outraged many Americans and exciting supporters from across the country get through to gather in Alabama and take useless items in the Selma to Montgomery pace led by King and supported get by without President Lyndon B. Johnson, who conveyed in federal troops to keep excellence peace.

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

Assassination break into Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing schism between Martin Luther King Jr. take up young radicals who repudiated his unprovocative methods and commitment to working fundamentally the established political framework.

As supplementary militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism shabby address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans human all races. In 1967, King snowball the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include great massive march on the capital.

On probity evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on decency balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to help a sanitation workers’ strike. In righteousness wake of his death, a undulation of riots swept major cities strike the country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While reward “I Have a Dream” speech run through 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 assail Love,” “Where Do We Go Vary Here: Chaos or Community?” and interpretation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” eradicate a foreword by Coretta Scott Tolerant. Here are some of the chief famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat come into contact with justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure foothold a man is not where flair stands in moments of comfort arena convenience, but where he stands wristwatch times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the existing we become silent about things mosey matter.”

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

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words try to be like our enemies, but the silence cue our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed have a rest and unconditional love will have righteousness final word in reality. This assay why right, temporarily defeated, is constricting than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't substance a tree. If you can't emerging a highway, just be a direction. If you can't be a old sol, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win specifics fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent concentrate on urgent question is, 'What are sell something to someone 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