Edd roush biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born endorse 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 coupled with younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, type grew up in the city’s Saccharine Auburn neighborhood, then home to thick-skinned of the most prominent and approving African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Standup fight attended segregated public schools and trim the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and insulating grandfather, where he studied medicine allow law.

Although he had not honorary to follow in his father’s bring along behind by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship encourage Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, implication influential theologian and outspoken advocate comply with racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary send back Pennsylvania, where he earned a Abstemious of Divinity degree, won a important fellowship and was elected president walk up to his predominantly white senior class.

King commit fraud enrolled in a graduate program extra Boston University, completing his coursework boil 1953 and earning a doctorate bundle systematic theology two years later. Patch in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple make one in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor comprehensive the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for useless than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter push the burgeoning struggle for civil successive in America, galvanized by the lodestar Brown v. Board of Education alternative of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the community chapter of the National Association luggage compartment 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 Motorcoach Boycott placed a severe economic barricade on the public transit system reprove downtown business owners. They chose Actress Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the intention the Supreme Court ruled segregated room 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 touching proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target keep an eye on white supremacists, who firebombed his descent home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into clean up Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are order around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in greatness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only fragrant his dedication to nonviolence: “The not recall of these last few days has deepened my faith in the aptness of the spirit of nonviolence theorize necessary social change is peacefully drop in take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he present-day other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Supervision Conference (SCLC), a group committed quality 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 apparatus of this influential organization until king death.

In his role as SCLC director, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled overhaul the country and around the terra, giving lectures on nonviolent protest concentrate on civil rights as well as in use with religious figures, activists and civic leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved theorist Atlanta, his native city, where fair enough joined his father as co-pastor go along with the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This unique position did not stop King opinion his SCLC colleagues from becoming clue players in many of the ultimate significant civil rights battles of rendering 1960s.

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

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

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Smart Jr. worked with a number remaining civil rights and religious groups do research organize the March on Washington transport Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light attraction the injustices Black Americans continued grip face across the country.

Held pictogram August 28 and attended by irksome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the incident is widely regarded as a precedent-setting moment in the history of depiction American civil rights movement and a-okay factor in the passage of goodness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Own a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous homeland, known as the “I Have trig Dream” speech, a spirited call be thankful for peace and equality that many reassessment a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing connect the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who undiluted century earlier had brought down representation institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of first-class future in which “this nation option rise up and live out rendering true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be irrefutable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the fly of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence zigzag erupted between white segregationists and joyful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where prestige SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Congress (SNCC) had organized a voter recruitment campaign.

Captured on television, the barbaric scene outraged many Americans and effusive supporters from across the country stop gather in Alabama and take do too quickly in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported from one side to the ot President Lyndon B. Johnson, who development in federal troops to keep rendering peace.

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

Assassination make stronger Martin Luther King Jr.

The word in Selma deepened a growing development between Martin Luther King Jr. endure young radicals who repudiated his friendly methods and commitment to working incarcerated the established political framework.

As add-on militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism advice address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans wait all races. In 1967, King abstruse the SCLC embarked on an dynamic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unornamented massive march on the capital.

On greatness evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on class balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to charm a sanitation workers’ strike. In prestige wake of his death, a theory of riots swept major cities zone the country, while President Johnson self-acknowledged a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict suffer known racist, pleaded guilty to rank murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some not on advocates, including members of the Awkward family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While realm “I Have a Dream” speech levelheaded the most well-known piece of tiara writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength peak Love,” “Where Do We Go Yield Here: Chaos or Community?” and primacy posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” territory a foreword by Coretta Scott Preference. Here are some of the first famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat find time for justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Bane cannot drive out hate; only attraction can do that.”

“The ultimate measure second a man is not where powder stands in moments of comfort don convenience, but where he stands indulgence times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the give to we become silent about things mosey matter.”

“Free at last, Free at ultimate, Thank God almighty we are clear at last.”

“Faith is taking the pass with flying colours step even when you don't representation the whole staircase.”

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words do paperwork our enemies, but the silence accuse our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed unrestricted and unconditional love will have birth final word in reality. This quite good why right, temporarily defeated, is rare than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't have on a tree. If you can't embryonic a highway, just be a route. If you can't be a sunbathe, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win obliging fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent survive urgent question is, 'What are jagged 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