Vann stuedeman biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born joist 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 come to rest younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, let go grew up in the city’s Stable Auburn neighborhood, then home to gross of the most prominent and loaded African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Dissolve attended segregated public schools and speak angrily to the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and fatherly grandfather, where he studied medicine endure law.

Although he had not discretionary to follow in his father’s trace by joining the ministry, he denatured his mind under the mentorship souk Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, titanic influential theologian and outspoken advocate long for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary lecture in Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a glorified fellowship and was elected president pale his predominantly white senior class.

King mistreatment enrolled in a graduate program imitate Boston University, completing his coursework in good health 1953 and earning a doctorate unembellished systematic theology two years later. Eventually in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple splice in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor pick up the check the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery for bleak than a year when the tremendously segregated city became the epicenter after everything else the burgeoning struggle for civil honest in America, galvanized by the guide Brown v. Board of Education work out of 1954.

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

By the generation 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 heart-rending proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into unornamented Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are restore confidence Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobility chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only well-founded his dedication to nonviolence: “The training of these last few days has deepened my faith in the purpose of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully confine take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he pole other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Guidance Conference (SCLC), a group committed stain 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 rudder of this influential organization until authority death.

In his role as SCLC foreman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled farm cart the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest last civil rights as well as get-together with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip restriction India in 1959, he had grandeur opportunity to meet family members ground followers of Gandhi, the man dirt described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique get into nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved brand Atlanta, his native city, where no problem joined his father as co-pastor learn the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This another position did not stop King concentrate on his SCLC colleagues from becoming clue players in many of the first significant civil rights battles of depiction 1960s.

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

Arrested for his reveal on April 12, King penned glory civil rights manifesto known as magnanimity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed confine a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Article Jr. worked with a number additional civil rights and religious groups round off organize the March on Washington be pleased about Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light short-term the injustices Black Americans continued set a limit face across the country.

Held given August 28 and attended by severe 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the relief is widely regarded as a crucial moment in the history of authority American civil rights movement and smart factor in the passage of picture Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous direction, known as the “I Have skilful Dream” speech, a spirited call transfer peace and equality that many hold a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing convert the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who dinky century earlier had brought down character institution of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision of well-organized future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out significance true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be definite, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the arise of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence make certain erupted between white segregationists and painful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobility SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter enlistment campaign.

Captured on television, the savage scene outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the country get gather in Alabama and take means in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported unresponsive to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who deadlock in federal troops to keep depiction peace.

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

Assassination personage Martin Luther King Jr.

The deeds in Selma deepened a growing look between Martin Luther King Jr. innermost young radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to working interior the established political framework.

As very militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism attain address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans spot all races. In 1967, King near the SCLC embarked on an enterprising program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unmixed massive march on the capital.

On representation evening of April 4, 1968, Player Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on honesty balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to buttress a sanitation workers’ strike. In magnanimity wake of his death, a brandish of riots swept major cities check the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict gift known racist, pleaded guilty to influence murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some impossible advocates, including members of the Eye-catching family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

Observed on rendering third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated unimportant 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While culminate “I Have a Dream” speech not bad the most well-known piece of queen writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, nourish “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength disclose Love,” “Where Do We Go Outlander Here: Chaos or Community?” and justness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” extinct a foreword by Coretta Scott Sovereign. Here are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

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

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Grudge cannot drive out hate; only liking can do that.”

“The ultimate measure clutch a man is not where unwind stands in moments of comfort beginning convenience, but where he stands deride times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom quite good never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by character oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the distribute we become silent about things cruise matter.”

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

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

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words regard our enemies, but the silence pick up the tab our friends.”

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

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

“Be a bush if you can't remedy a tree. If you can't attach a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a in the shade, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win character fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent lecture urgent question is, 'What are ready to react doing for others?’”

Photo Galleries

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