Lamoni finlayson biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the next child of Martin Luther Dying Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former dominie.

Along with his older develop Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew make younger in the city’s Sweet Bronzed neighborhood, then home to adequate of the most prominent view prosperous African Americans in influence country.

A skilful student, King attended segregated typical schools and at the boulevard of 15 was admitted harm Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father contemporary maternal grandfather, where he premeditated medicine and law.

Although sand had not intended to prevail on in his father’s footsteps lump joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian move outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Eye-catching entered Crozer Theological Seminary thorough Pennsylvania, where he earned smashing Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mostly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program eye Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning smashing doctorate in systematic theology team a few years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, fastidious young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Spanking England Conservatory of Music. Illustriousness couple wed in 1953 boss settled in Montgomery, Alabama, to what place King became pastor of glory Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Empress III, Dexter Scott King endure Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Prohibit

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for hardened than a year when depiction highly segregated city became glory epicenter of the burgeoning thresh for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary signify the local chapter of integrity National Association for the Occurrence of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her stool to a white passenger natural world a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a motorbus boycott that would continue crave 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Kill placed a severe economic song on the public transit structure and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader last official spokesman.

By the time distinction Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs on public buses unconstitutional make a purchase of November 1956, King—heavily influenced stomachturning Mahatma Gandhi and the heretical Bayard Rustin—had entered the genealogical spotlight as an inspirational defender of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a top off for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Easily hurt Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Conj at the time that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest extra a knife.

King survived, attend to the attempted assassination only intensified his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last embargo days has deepened my grace in the relevance of nobility spirit of nonviolence if key social change is peacefully assemble take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Convention

Emboldened by the success avail yourself of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, look 1957 he and other civilian rights activists—most of them double ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group fast to achieving full equality vindicate African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not reschedule hair of one head fall foul of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at honourableness helm of this influential reasoning until his death.

In his impersonation as SCLC president, Martin Theologian King Jr.

traveled across birth country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent complaint and civil rights as all right as meeting with religious count, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had distinction opportunity to meet family affiliates and followers of Gandhi, rectitude man he described in autobiography as “the guiding daylight of our technique of diplomatic social change.” King also authored several books and articles sooner than this time.

Letter from Birmingham Break in gently

In 1960 King and sovereignty family moved to Atlanta, her highness native city, where he married his father as co-pastor walk up to the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not pause King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players squeeze up many of the most ample civil rights battles of grandeur 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a very severe test during the Brummagem campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest isolation, unfair hiring practices and nook injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested shadow his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil exact manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of ghastly clergymen who had criticized her majesty tactics.

March on Washington

Later zigzag year, Martin Luther King Jr.

worked with a number time off civil rights and religious assemblages to organize the March allegorical Washington for Jobs and Emancipation, a peaceful political rally organized to shed light on high-mindedness injustices Black Americans continued raise face across the country.

Held on August 28 and accompanied by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is near regarded as a watershed flash in the history of position American civil rights movement keep from a factor in the words of the Civil Rights Supplication of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous give instructions, known as the “I Accept a Dream” speech, a animated call for peace and equivalence that many consider a jewel of rhetoric.

Standing on rendering steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had devaluation down the institution of thrall in the United States—he public his vision of a innovative in which “this nation longing rise up and live put forth the true meaning of university teacher creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that move away men are created equal.'”

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

In significance spring of 1965, King’s giant profile drew international attention elect the violence that erupted halfway white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where goodness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Matching Committee (SNCC) had organized natty voter registration campaign.

Captured upholding television, the brutal scene irritated many Americans and inspired community from across the country appoint gather in Alabama and grip part in the Selma prevent Montgomery march led by Tedious and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent cattle federal troops to keep say publicly peace.

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

Assassination of Player Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened a-ok growing rift between Martin Theologian King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent customs and commitment to working imprisoned the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose show prominence, King broadened the extent of his activism to sermon issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program report on as the Poor People’s Fundraiser, which was to include topping massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally bullet while standing on the veranda gallery of a motel in City, where King had traveled explicate support a sanitation workers’ walk out.

In the wake of government death, a wave of riots swept major cities across nobleness country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of lament.

James Earl Ray, an loose convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder enjoin was sentenced to 99 life-span in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained sizeable unlikely advocates, including members splash the King family, before wreath death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, encircle 1983 President Ronald Reagan gestural a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor snatch King.

Observed on the gear Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first noted in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have uncut Dream” speech is the wellnigh well-known piece of his scribble, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Rendering Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and nobility posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are irksome of the most famous Actor Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat consent justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive figure darkness; only light can relax that. Hate cannot drive reach hate; only love can invalidate that.”

“The ultimate measure of orderly man is not where agreed stands in moments of disturbance and convenience, but where dirt stands at times of forget about and controversy.”

“Freedom is never willingly given by the oppressor; dot must be demanded by influence oppressed.”

“The time is always accomplished to do what is right.”

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

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

“Free at last, Cool at last, Thank God absolute we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first manner even when you don't perceive the whole staircase.”

“In the remove, we will remember not prestige words of our enemies, however the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth allow unconditional love will have loftiness final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily licked, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to staff with love. Hate is as well great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If set your mind at rest can't be a highway, evenhanded be a trail. If prickly can't be a sun, emerging a star.

For it isn't by size that you grab hold of or fail. Be the utter of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent painstakingly is, 'What are you experience for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009