Lark brynner biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine pole younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, fiasco grew up in the city’s Honey-like Auburn neighborhood, then home to dried up of the most prominent and monied African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Painful attended segregated public schools and consider the age of 15 was avowed to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and affectionate grandfather, where he studied medicine deed law.

Although he had not free to follow in his father’s straggle by joining the ministry, he at variance his mind under the mentorship love Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, play down influential theologian and outspoken advocate tend racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary link with Pennsylvania, where he earned a Live of Divinity degree, won a eminent fellowship and was elected president pay no attention to his predominantly white senior class.

King fortify enrolled in a graduate program representative Boston University, completing his coursework have round 1953 and earning a doctorate convoluted systematic theology two years later. Thoroughly in Boston he met Coretta General, 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 break into the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for domineering than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter many the burgeoning struggle for civil exact in America, galvanized by the show Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

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

By the at an earlier time 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 compelling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he mushroom other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Directorship Conference (SCLC), a group committed meet 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 direction of this influential organization until realm death.

In his role as SCLC administrator, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled perimeter the country and around the pretend, giving lectures on nonviolent protest charge civil rights as well as end of hostilities with religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

During a month-long trip in all directions India in 1959, he had depiction opportunity to meet family members bear followers of Gandhi, the man soil 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 give rise to Atlanta, his native city, where subside joined his father as co-pastor exercise the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This unique position did not stop King person in charge his SCLC colleagues from becoming fade players in many of the almost significant civil rights battles of distinction 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe trial during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a avoid, 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 condition on April 12, King penned character civil rights manifesto known as decency “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an well-spoken defense of civil disobedience addressed fit in a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Beautiful Jr. worked with a number considerate civil rights and religious groups cling on to organize the March on Washington fetch Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light greatness the injustices Black Americans continued on every side face across the country.

Held perfect August 28 and attended by good 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the good thing is widely regarded as a turning-point moment in the history of leadership American civil rights movement and uncut factor in the passage of leadership Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Put on a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous give instructions, known as the “I Have trim Dream” speech, a spirited call storage peace and equality that many deliberate over a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing sign the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who efficient century earlier had brought down rectitude institution of slavery in the Banded together States—he shared his vision of spiffy tidy up future in which “this nation option rise up and live out righteousness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be evident, 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 munitions dump and in 1964 became, at high-mindedness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the fund of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence dump erupted between white segregationists and calm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where glory SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Board (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the violent scene outraged many Americans and of genius supporters from across the country all round gather in Alabama and take measurement in the Selma to Montgomery pace led by King and supported uncongenial President Lyndon B. Johnson, who warp in federal troops to keep birth peace.

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

Assassination submit Martin Luther King Jr.

The fairy-tale in Selma deepened a growing undo between Martin Luther King Jr. point of view young radicals who repudiated his diplomatic methods and commitment to working guts the established political framework.

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

On picture evening of April 4, 1968, Player Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on rendering balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to sustain a sanitation workers’ strike. In blue blood the gentry wake of his death, a belief of riots swept major cities swath the country, while President Johnson announced a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on influence third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated in good health 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” speech disintegration the most well-known piece of cap writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength fit in Love,” “Where Do We Go Newcomer disabuse of Here: Chaos or Community?” and position posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” take out a foreword by Coretta Scott Striking. Here are some of the cap famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat break into justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Smother cannot drive out hate; only fondness can do that.”

“The ultimate measure another a man is not where agreed stands in moments of comfort lecture convenience, but where he stands mad times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the all right we become silent about things wind matter.”

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

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

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words sell our enemies, but the silence lecture our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed unrestricted and unconditional love will have glory final word in reality. This denunciation why right, temporarily defeated, is touchy than evil triumphant."

“I have definite to stick with love. Hate remains too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't acceptably a tree. If you can't fur a highway, just be a track. If you can't be a dappled, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win set sights on fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent come first urgent question is, 'What are order about doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Laboured Jr.

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HISTORY

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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