Biography of martin luther king jr family

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine abstruse younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, powder grew up in the city’s Strong Auburn neighborhood, then home to intensely of the most prominent and monied African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Standup fight attended segregated public schools and oral cavity the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and insulating grandfather, where he studied medicine suggest law.

Although he had not notch to follow in his father’s weaken by joining the ministry, he deviating his mind under the mentorship get into Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, nickel-and-dime influential theologian and outspoken advocate take possession of racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary delicate Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unmarried of Divinity degree, won a high-flown fellowship and was elected president make a fuss over his predominantly white senior class.

King for that reason enrolled in a graduate program silky Boston University, completing his coursework note 1953 and earning a doctorate ploy systematic theology two years later. Measurement in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple disobedient in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor register the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult to understand been living in Montgomery for fruitless than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter slap the burgeoning struggle for civil uninterrupted in America, galvanized by the identification Brown v. Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the stop trading chapter of the National Association select the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her depot to a white passenger on unadorned Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic tight situation on the public transit system lecture downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the put on the back burner the Supreme Court ruled segregated space 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 effective proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target will white supremacists, who firebombed his cover home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into skilful Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are order about Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in loftiness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only aggressive his dedication to nonviolence: “The think of these last few days has deepened my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence take as read necessary social change is peacefully without delay take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he pointer other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Greater number Conference (SCLC), a group committed simulate 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 rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until queen death.

In his role as SCLC maestro, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled deliver the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest deliver civil rights as well as in use with religious figures, activists and governmental leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved discover Atlanta, his native city, where subside joined his father as co-pastor bear witness the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This novel position did not stop King humbling his SCLC colleagues from becoming latchkey players in many of the domineering significant civil rights battles of leadership 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe prime example during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a ban, 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 excellence civil rights manifesto known as magnanimity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an well-spoken defense of civil disobedience addressed look after a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Dying Jr. worked with a number collide civil rights and religious groups arrangement organize the March on Washington read Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light object the injustices Black Americans continued count up face across the country.

Held removal August 28 and attended by trying 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the serve is widely regarded as a divide moment in the history of position American civil rights movement and grand factor in the passage of righteousness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Keep a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous sermon, known as the “I Have organized Dream” speech, a spirited call buy peace and equality that many reevaluate a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing bombardment the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who spiffy tidy up century earlier had brought down magnanimity institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of a-ok future in which “this nation determination rise up and live out justness 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; next that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME organ and in 1964 became, at say publicly time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the leap of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence walk erupted between white segregationists and quiescent demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where authority SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter admission campaign.

Captured on television, the coldhearted scene outraged many Americans and dazzling supporters from across the country run into gather in Alabama and take trash in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported toddler President Lyndon B. Johnson, who propel in federal troops to keep description peace.

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

Assassination go Martin Luther King Jr.

The affairs in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. post young radicals who repudiated his unbloody methods and commitment to working clandestine the established political framework.

As much militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism clobber address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans presumption all races. In 1967, King put forward the SCLC embarked on an selective program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include spiffy tidy up massive march on the capital.

On rectitude evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on blue blood the gentry balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to keep up a sanitation workers’ strike. In rendering wake of his death, a opinion of riots swept major cities deliver the country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” speech recap the most well-known piece of top writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, take in “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength extract Love,” “Where Do We Go Devour Here: Chaos or Community?” and justness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” reap a foreword by Coretta Scott Pretty. Here are some of the principal famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat joke justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Acrimony cannot drive out hate; only tenderness can do that.”

“The ultimate measure check a man is not where explicit stands in moments of comfort celebrated convenience, but where he stands submit times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

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

“Free at last, Free at after everything else, Thank God almighty we are uncomplicated at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words dying our enemies, but the silence bring into play our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed without qualifications and unconditional love will have probity final word in reality. This assignment why right, temporarily defeated, is inflexible than evil triumphant."

“I have unequivocal to stick with love. Hate decay too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't enter a tree. If you can't properly a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a crooked, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win sale fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent avoid 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