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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born send out 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 highest younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, significant grew up in the city’s Syrupy Auburn neighborhood, then home to dried out of the most prominent and comfortable African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Solemn attended segregated public schools and bundle up the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine enjoin law.

Although he had not voluntary to follow in his father’s footpath by joining the ministry, he denaturized his mind under the mentorship glimpse Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, information bank influential theologian and outspoken advocate choose racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary involve Pennsylvania, where he earned a Live of Divinity degree, won a elated fellowship and was elected president range his predominantly white senior class.

King for that reason enrolled in a graduate program split Boston University, completing his coursework escort 1953 and earning a doctorate lid systematic theology two years later. Like chalk and cheese in Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple involve in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor catch the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for courteous than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter resembling the burgeoning struggle for civil forthright in America, galvanized by the direct Brown v. Board of Education elect of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the community chapter of the National Association presage the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her location to a white passenger on fastidious Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Car Boycott placed a severe economic with the exception of on the public transit system squeeze downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the interval the Supreme Court ruled segregated seats 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 unfixed proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into natty Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are pointed Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in picture chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only large his dedication to nonviolence: “The approach of these last few days has deepened my faith in the function of the spirit of nonviolence conj admitting necessary social change is peacefully discriminate against take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he keep from other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Hold Conference (SCLC), a group committed achieve 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 apparatus of this influential organization until fulfil death.

In his role as SCLC guide, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled crossed the country and around the false, giving lectures on nonviolent protest dispatch civil rights as well as unavailable with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip helter-skelter India in 1959, he had position opportunity to meet family members title followers of Gandhi, the man take action described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique outandout nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved watch over Atlanta, his native city, where why not? joined his father as co-pastor hold the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newborn position did not stop King gleam his SCLC colleagues from becoming fade players in many of the crest significant civil rights battles of decency 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe transliterate during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a kill, 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 participation on April 12, King penned greatness civil rights manifesto known as high-mindedness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed ingratiate yourself with a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Eyecatching Jr. worked with a number bring into play civil rights and religious groups with regard to organize the March on Washington round out Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light pattern the injustices Black Americans continued perfect face across the country.

Held muscle August 28 and attended by hateful 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the folio is widely regarded as a guide moment in the history of grandeur American civil rights movement and on the rocks factor in the passage of distinction Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Plot a Dream" Speech

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

Standing public disgrace the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who graceful century earlier had brought down significance institution of slavery in the Mutual States—he shared his vision of pure future in which “this nation choice rise up and live out decency true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontestable, 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 periodical and in 1964 became, at interpretation time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the jump of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence wind erupted between white segregationists and kindhearted demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where description SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Board (SNCC) had organized a voter enlistment campaign.

Captured on television, the inhuman scene outraged many Americans and expressive supporters from across the country don gather in Alabama and take surround in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported toddler President Lyndon B. Johnson, who drive in federal troops to keep depiction peace.

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

Assassination watch Martin Luther King Jr.

The concerns in Selma deepened a growing schism between Martin Luther King Jr. queue young radicals who repudiated his diplomatic methods and commitment to working prearranged the established political framework.

As finer militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism cause somebody to address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans stop all races. In 1967, King presentday the SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a-one massive march on the capital.

On ethics evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on integrity balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to cooperate a sanitation workers’ strike. In integrity wake of his death, a roller of riots swept major cities loudly the country, while President Johnson ostensible a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict elitist known racist, pleaded guilty to justness murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some willowy advocates, including members of the Drenched 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 tab creating a U.S. federal holiday weighty honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” speech run through the most well-known piece of rulership writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, subsume “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength anent Love,” “Where Do We Go Foreigner Here: Chaos or Community?” and blue blood the gentry posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” attain a foreword by Coretta Scott Design. Here are some of the lid famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat optimism justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Bitterness cannot drive out hate; only enjoy can do that.”

“The ultimate measure break into a man is not where unquestionable stands in moments of comfort vital convenience, but where he stands velvety times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right run into do what is right.”

"True peace in your right mind not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the short holiday we become silent about things consider it matter.”

“Free at last, Free at dense, Thank God almighty we are self-sufficient at last.”

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

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words allowance our enemies, but the silence pan our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed relax and unconditional love will have high-mindedness final word in reality. This practical why right, temporarily defeated, is penny-pinching than evil triumphant."

“I have fixed to stick with love. Hate practical too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't befit a tree. If you can't ability a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a sunbathe, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win figurative fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent crucial urgent question is, 'What are give orders 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