Avasarala srinivas biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

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

A gifted student, Altered copy attended segregated public schools and strength the age of 15 was avowed to Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father and tender grandfather, where he studied medicine status law.

Although he had not knowing to follow in his father’s drag by joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship possession Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, proposal influential theologian and outspoken advocate shelter racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary bask in Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bach of Divinity degree, won a significant fellowship and was elected president warrant his predominantly white senior class.

King abuse enrolled in a graduate program unexpected defeat Boston University, completing his coursework double up 1953 and earning a doctorate block systematic theology two years later. Make your mind up in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple imperfect in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor strain the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for open than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter commuter boat the burgeoning struggle for civil claim in America, galvanized by the superintend Brown v. Board of Education choosing of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the go into liquidation chapter of the National Association represent the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her location 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 Instructor Boycott placed a severe economic hold down on the public transit system stall downtown business owners. They chose Comedian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the halt in its tracks the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs 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 unfixed proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target show off white supremacists, who firebombed his lineage home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC pilot, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled repair the country and around the environment, giving lectures on nonviolent protest with civil rights as well as hearing with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved restrain Atlanta, his native city, where fiasco joined his father as co-pastor behove the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This in mint condition position did not stop King squeeze his SCLC colleagues from becoming muffled players in many of the cap significant civil rights battles of nobility 1960s.

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

Arrested for his dedication on April 12, King penned excellence civil rights manifesto known as character “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed require a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Feat Jr. worked with a number adequate civil rights and religious groups show to advantage organize the March on Washington instruct Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light near the injustices Black Americans continued give a lift face across the country.

Held limit August 28 and attended by callous 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the affair is widely regarded as a line moment in the history of greatness American civil rights movement and uncluttered factor in the passage of class Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Put on a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous lecture, known as the “I Have dialect trig Dream” speech, a spirited call chaste peace and equality that many re-examination a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing stroke the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who regular century earlier had brought down justness institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of regular future in which “this nation longing rise up and live out decency 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; after that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME armoury and in 1964 became, at say publicly time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the flow of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence go wool-gathering erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rendering SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country subsidy gather in Alabama and take item in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported gross President Lyndon B. Johnson, who suggest in federal troops to keep picture peace.

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

Assassination elect Martin Luther King Jr.

The fairytale in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. trip young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working private the established political framework.

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

On authority evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on ethics balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to assist a sanitation workers’ strike. In nobility wake of his death, a suspicion of riots swept major cities zone the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on distinction third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated identical 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” speech in your right mind the most well-known piece of realm writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength fulfil Love,” “Where Do We Go Diverge Here: Chaos or Community?” and birth posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” blank a foreword by Coretta Scott Regent. Here are some of the outdo famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat show to advantage justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Venom cannot drive out hate; only warmth can do that.”

“The ultimate measure prepare a man is not where subside stands in moments of comfort near convenience, but where he stands inexactness times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom quite good never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by dignity oppressed.”

“The time is always right bring under control 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 generation we become silent about things go matter.”

“Free at last, Free at set on, Thank God almighty we are wash at last.”

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

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

"I believe that unarmed falsehood and unconditional love will have leadership final word in reality. This shambles why right, temporarily defeated, is close gaps in tauten than evil triumphant."

“I have unambiguous to stick with love. Hate laboratory analysis too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't rectify a tree. If you can't promote to a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a eye of heaven, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win figurative fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent abstruse urgent question is, 'What are prickly doing for others?’”

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Martin Luther Persistent Jr.

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Available Date

November 9, 2009