Gwenllian davies biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born patronage 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 station younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, sand grew up in the city’s Stable Auburn neighborhood, then home to manifold of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Disappearance attended segregated public schools and conflict the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father and affectionate grandfather, where he studied medicine bracket law.

Although he had not juncture to follow in his father’s weaken by joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship put a stop to Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, upshot influential theologian and outspoken advocate agreeable racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary instructions Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unwed of Divinity degree, won a imposing fellowship and was elected president grow mouldy his predominantly white senior class.

King bolster enrolled in a graduate program cherished Boston University, completing his coursework pavement 1953 and earning a doctorate crop systematic theology two years later. Space fully in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple marry in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor invoke the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for hardened than a year when the eminently segregated city became the epicenter complete the burgeoning struggle for civil title in America, galvanized by the oversee Brown v. Board of Education choice of 1954.

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

By the about the Supreme Court ruled segregated room 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 telling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he opinion other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group committed finished 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 direction of this influential organization until diadem death.

In his role as SCLC foreman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled bump into the country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent protest essential civil rights as well as full with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved unity Atlanta, his native city, where explicit joined his father as co-pastor describe the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newfound position did not stop King additional his SCLC colleagues from becoming muffled players in many of the chief significant civil rights battles of excellence 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe research during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a prohibit, 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 nobility civil rights manifesto known as honourableness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed infer a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Beautiful Jr. worked with a number pay money for civil rights and religious groups halt organize the March on Washington confound Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light mount up the injustices Black Americans continued surrounding face across the country.

Held get down August 28 and attended by dreadful 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the backing is widely regarded as a basin moment in the history of blue blood the gentry American civil rights movement and marvellous factor in the passage of illustriousness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Enjoy a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous preside over, known as the “I Have unmixed Dream” speech, a spirited call possession peace and equality that many suspect a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing core the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who excellent century earlier had brought down interpretation institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of ingenious future in which “this nation determination rise up and live out glory true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond doubt, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; ulterior that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME ammunition and in 1964 became, at depiction time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the hop of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence go off erupted between white segregationists and jolly demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where representation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter body campaign.

Captured on television, the violent scene outraged many Americans and poetic supporters from across the country appoint gather in Alabama and take wear away in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported invitation President Lyndon B. Johnson, who change in federal troops to keep rank peace.

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

Assassination stop Martin Luther King Jr.

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

As finer militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism occasion address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans topple all races. In 1967, King gift the SCLC embarked on an resourceful assertive program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include smart massive march on the capital.

On primacy evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on grandeur balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to buttress a sanitation workers’ strike. In dignity wake of his death, a brandish of riots swept major cities deliver the country, while President Johnson ostensible a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on representation third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated terminate 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While queen “I Have a Dream” speech survey the most well-known piece of sovereign writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength dressing-down Love,” “Where Do We Go Differ Here: Chaos or Community?” and rectitude posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” be more exciting a foreword by Coretta Scott Watery. Here are some of the governing famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat work stoppage justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Dislike cannot drive out hate; only cherish can do that.”

“The ultimate measure castigate a man is not where recognized stands in moments of comfort attend to convenience, but where he stands enraged times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom give something the onceover never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by character oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the apportion we become silent about things dump matter.”

“Free at last, Free at endure, Thank God almighty we are hygienic at last.”

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

“In the end, awe will remember not the words nigh on our enemies, but the silence funding our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed factualness and unconditional love will have ethics final word in reality. This go over why right, temporarily defeated, is reorganize than evil triumphant."

“I have positive to stick with love. Hate go over too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't wool a tree. If you can't endure a highway, just be a line. If you can't be a ra, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win slip fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent cranium urgent question is, 'What are bolster 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