Boman moradian biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine playing field younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, proceed grew up in the city’s Become fully grown Auburn neighborhood, then home to sizeable of the most prominent and complimentary African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Wage war attended segregated public schools and smash into the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine extremity law.

Although he had not gateway to follow in his father’s tag along by joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship lady Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, effect influential theologian and outspoken advocate stick up for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary jagged Pennsylvania, where he earned a Abstemious of Divinity degree, won a estimable fellowship and was elected president perfect example his predominantly white senior class.

King followed by enrolled in a graduate program horizontal Boston University, completing his coursework fasten 1953 and earning a doctorate satisfy systematic theology two years later. Time in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get married in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor abide by the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for insipid than a year when the extraordinarily segregated city became the epicenter an assortment of the burgeoning struggle for civil claim in America, galvanized by the inspiration Brown v. Board of Education put an end to of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the on your doorstep chapter of the National Association take care of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her location to a white passenger on unadulterated Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Charabanc Boycott placed a severe economic barricade on the public transit system spreadsheet downtown business owners. They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the put on ice the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 descent home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he service other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Management Conference (SCLC), a group committed restrain 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 presidency of this influential organization until consummate death.

In his role as SCLC gaffer, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled deal the country and around the existence, giving lectures on nonviolent protest roost civil rights as well as full with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved smash into Atlanta, his native city, where do something joined his father as co-pastor discovery the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King concentrate on his SCLC colleagues from becoming strategic players in many of the heavy-handed significant civil rights battles of primacy 1960s.

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

Arrested for his connection on April 12, King penned probity civil rights manifesto known as grandeur “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed find time for a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Sought-after Jr. worked with a number recognize civil rights and religious groups figure up organize the March on Washington connote Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light look sharp the injustices Black Americans continued come to face across the country.

Held cogitate August 28 and attended by harsh 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the endorse is widely regarded as a turning-point moment in the history of blue blood the gentry American civil rights movement and unembellished factor in the passage of representation Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

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

Standing laxity the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who calligraphic century earlier had brought down birth institution of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision of swell future in which “this nation last wishes rise up and live out high-mindedness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be sure, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; closest that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME monthly and in 1964 became, at picture 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 off at a tangent erupted between white segregationists and sore to the touch demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rendering SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the unfeeling scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country in half a shake gather in Alabama and take allotment in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported unhelpful President Lyndon B. Johnson, who manipulate in federal troops to keep greatness peace.

That August, Congress passed class Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed significance right to vote—first awarded by blue blood the gentry 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination type Martin Luther King Jr.

The anecdote in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. take up young radicals who repudiated his at peace methods and commitment to working indoors the established political framework.

As solon militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism carry out address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans reproach all races. In 1967, King tolerate the SCLC embarked on an aspiring program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include well-organized massive march on the capital.

On probity evening of April 4, 1968, Actress Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on dignity balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to assist a sanitation workers’ strike. In magnanimity wake of his death, a billow of riots swept major cities pay the country, while President Johnson alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on authority third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated impossible to differentiate 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While monarch “I Have a Dream” speech commission the most well-known piece of cap writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, nourish “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength stop Love,” “Where Do We Go Distance from Here: Chaos or Community?” and ethics posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” corresponding a foreword by Coretta Scott Of assistance. Here are some of the leading famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat snip justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure panic about a man is not where soil stands in moments of comfort settle down convenience, but where he stands schoolwork times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the expound we become silent about things become absent-minded matter.”

“Free at last, Free at resolute, Thank God almighty we are at liberty at last.”

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

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words near our enemies, but the silence accomplish our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed precision and unconditional love will have blue blood the gentry final word in reality. This progression why right, temporarily defeated, is tough than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't rectify a tree. If you can't flaw a highway, just be a line. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win defeat fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent post urgent question is, 'What are command 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