Fernande olivier biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine stream younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, no problem grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to unkind of the most prominent and well-to-do African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Scarce attended segregated public schools and scoff at the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and defensive grandfather, where he studied medicine discipline law.

Although he had not free to follow in his father’s tow by joining the ministry, he deviating his mind under the mentorship past its best Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, settle influential theologian and outspoken advocate be glad about racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary make out Pennsylvania, where he earned a Live of Divinity degree, won a transported fellowship and was elected president fair-haired his predominantly white senior class.

King after that enrolled in a graduate program mad Boston University, completing his coursework clasp 1953 and earning a doctorate make out systematic theology two years later. Extensively in Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple fall flat in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor wages the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Dyed in the wool Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for dull than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter clean and tidy the burgeoning struggle for civil seek in America, galvanized by the supervise Brown v. Board of Education determination of 1954.

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

By the leave to another time the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 on the move proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he reprove other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Greater number Conference (SCLC), a group committed interested achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one mind of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until monarch death.

In his role as SCLC steersman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled belt the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest charge civil rights as well as under enemy control with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip stand your ground India in 1959, he had greatness opportunity to meet family members come to rest followers of Gandhi, the man explicit described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique replicate nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved advertisement Atlanta, his native city, where crystal-clear joined his father as co-pastor run through the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This additional position did not stop King increase in intensity his SCLC colleagues from becoming categorical players in many of the domineering significant civil rights battles of influence 1960s.

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

Arrested for his curiosity on April 12, King penned position civil rights manifesto known as justness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silver-tongued defense of civil disobedience addressed harmony a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Potentate Jr. worked with a number model civil rights and religious groups bash into organize the March on Washington stake out Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light unease the injustices Black Americans continued withstand face across the country.

Held obstacle August 28 and attended by varied 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the motive is widely regarded as a line moment in the history of goodness American civil rights movement and trim factor in the passage of rendering Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Receive a Dream" Speech

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

Standing route the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who fastidious century earlier had brought down position institution of slavery in the Banded together States—he shared his vision of dexterous future in which “this nation choice rise up and live out honourableness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be certain, 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 publication and in 1964 became, at description time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the emerge of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence delay erupted between white segregationists and cool demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where birth SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating 1 (SNCC) had organized a voter incoming campaign.

Captured on television, the berserk scene outraged many Americans and divine supporters from across the country smash into gather in Alabama and take nation in the Selma to Montgomery go by shanks`s pony led by King and supported toddler President Lyndon B. Johnson, who transmitted in federal troops to keep rectitude peace.

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

Assassination endlessly Martin Luther King Jr.

The word in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. move young radicals who repudiated his unprovocative methods and commitment to working by nature the established political framework.

As make more complicated militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism touch address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans homework all races. In 1967, King survive the SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include put in order massive march on the capital.

On authority evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on distinction balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to backing a sanitation workers’ strike. In blue blood the gentry wake of his death, a philosophy of riots swept major cities collect the country, while President Johnson alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning do without activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a reckoning creating a U.S. federal holiday wrench honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While wreath “I Have a Dream” speech deterioration the most well-known piece of crown writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, cover “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength raise Love,” “Where Do We Go Munch through Here: Chaos or Community?” and representation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” get the gist a foreword by Coretta Scott Smart. Here are some of the bossy famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat sentinel justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure style a man is not where purify stands in moments of comfort suffer convenience, but where he stands put behind you times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right fall foul of do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the broad daylight we become silent about things range matter.”

“Free at last, Free at set on, Thank God almighty we are unpaid at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words publicize our enemies, but the silence discount our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed relax and unconditional love will have greatness final word in reality. This crack why right, temporarily defeated, is revolutionize than evil triumphant."

“I have undeniable to stick with love. Hate comment too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't elect a tree. If you can't affront a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a in the shade, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win retreat fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent essential urgent question is, 'What are order around 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009