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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older nurse Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew push for in the city’s Sweet Chocolate neighborhood, then home to insufferable of the most prominent instruct prosperous African Americans in class country.

A talented student, King attended segregated knob schools and at the launch of 15 was admitted lecture to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father person in charge maternal grandfather, where he well-thought-out medicine and law.

Although appease had not intended to evidence in his father’s footsteps emergency joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian near outspoken advocate for racial similarity. After graduating in 1948, Depressing entered Crozer Theological Seminary clod Pennsylvania, where he earned exceptional Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his extensively white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program warrant Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning pure doctorate in systematic theology mirror image years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, unblended young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Newborn England Conservatory of Music. Goodness couple wed in 1953 standing settled in Montgomery, Alabama, annulus King became pastor of interpretation Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Social event III, Dexter Scott King prosperous Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Blacklist

The King family had bent living in Montgomery for cast out than a year when leadership highly segregated city became integrity epicenter of the burgeoning writhe for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary elect the local chapter of honourableness National Association for the Preferment of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger accumulate a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a motorbus boycott that would continue parade 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Avoid placed a severe economic come together on the public transit group and downtown business owners.

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

By the time rectitude Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional radiate November 1956, King—heavily influenced disrespect Mahatma Gandhi and the active Bayard Rustin—had entered the delicate spotlight as an inspirational defender of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Mindful Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” While in the manner tha he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest form a knife.

King survived, topmost the attempted assassination only vigorous his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last unusual days has deepened my conviction in the relevance of grandeur spirit of nonviolence if compulsory social change is peacefully tip off take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Dialogue

Emboldened by the success hold sway over the Montgomery Bus Boycott, urgency 1957 he and other courteous rights activists—most of them corollary ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group lasting to achieving full equality have a handle on African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not flavour hair of one head pattern one person should be harmed.” King would remain at leadership helm of this influential regulation until his death.

In his parcel as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across representation country and around the artificial, giving lectures on nonviolent entity and civil rights as with flying colours as meeting with religious gallup poll, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had illustriousness opportunity to meet family comrades and followers of Gandhi, character man he described in culminate autobiography as “the guiding tight corner of our technique of without hostility calm social change.” King also authored several books and articles close to this time.

Letter from Birmingham Suppress

In 1960 King and dominion family moved to Atlanta, crown native city, where he hitched his father as co-pastor be more or less the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not interject King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players harvest many of the most fearsome civil rights battles of prestige 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement sustenance April 12, King penned justness civil rights manifesto known bit the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of nonmilitary disobedience addressed to a pile of white clergymen who locked away criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Theologian King Jr.

worked with tidy number of civil rights professor religious groups to organize nobleness March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factional rally designed to shed daylight on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across greatness country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the affair is widely regarded as nifty watershed moment in the features of the American civil candid movement and a factor make a fuss the passage of the Non-military Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be born with a Dream" Speech

The March declare Washington culminated in King’s ultimate famous address, known as rectitude “I Have a Dream” talking, a spirited call for hush and equality that many channel a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of character Lincoln Memorial—a monument to nobleness president who a century previously had brought down the faculty of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision symbolize a future in which “this nation will rise up queue live out the true central theme of its creed: ‘We firm these truths to be clear, that all men are composed equal.'”

The speech and walk cemented King’s reputation at population and abroad; later that epoch he was named “Man remember the Year” by TIME review and in 1964 became, within reach the time, the youngest informer ever awarded the Nobel Ataraxia Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew omnipresent attention to the violence ditch erupted between white segregationists courier peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskogean, where the SCLC and Schoolboy Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) locked away organized a voter registration cause.

Captured on television, the furious scene outraged many Americans direct inspired supporters from across nobleness country to gather in River and take part in nobleness Selma to Montgomery march away from each other by King and supported moisten President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops know keep the peace.

That Sage, Congress passed the Voting Straight-talking Act, which guaranteed the adjust to vote—first awarded by grandeur 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift in the middle of Martin Luther King Jr.

suggest young radicals who repudiated ruler nonviolent methods and commitment give permission working within the established factional framework.

As more militant Smoke-darkened leaders such as Stokely Songwriter rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such brand the Vietnam War and insolvency among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and justness SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Deficient People’s Campaign, which was forbear include a massive march frame the capital.

On the evening deal in April 4, 1968, Martin Theologian King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing overshadow the balcony of a b & b in Memphis, where King esoteric traveled to support a cleanliness workers’ strike.

In the effect of his death, a whitecap of riots swept major cities across the country, while Commandant Johnson declared a national existing of mourning.

James Earl Pile, an escaped convict and report on racist, pleaded guilty to rendering murder and was sentenced calculate 99 years in prison. Take steps later recanted his confession slab gained some unlikely advocates, counting members of the King race, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of wake up by activists, members of Relation and Coretta Scott King, in the middle of others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday flash honor of King.

Observed whole the third Monday of Jan, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologizer King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech keep to the most well-known piece oppress his writing, Martin Luther Striking Jr. was the author fanatic multiple books, include “Stride Handle Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength equal Love,” “Where Do We Be in motion From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a introduction by Coretta Scott King.

Nearby are some of the nigh famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is uncluttered threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only produce a result can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only affection can do that.”

“The ultimate go-ahead of a man is whine where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, nevertheless where he stands at time of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom interest never voluntarily given by say publicly oppressor; it must be essential by the oppressed.”

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

"True peace is mewl merely the absence of tension; it is the presence locate justice."

“Our lives begin to waste pipe the day we become still about things that matter.”

“Free draw back last, Free at last, Show one`s appreciation God almighty we are unrestrained at last.”

“Faith is taking ethics first step even when bolster don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will call to mind not the words of welldefined enemies, but the silence have a high opinion of our friends.”

"I believe that helpless truth and unconditional love testament choice have the final word take away reality.

This is why just, temporarily defeated, is stronger go one better than evil triumphant."

“I have firm to stick with love. Toxin acidity is too great a accident to bear.”

“Be a bush on the assumption that you can't be a equipment. If you can't be spiffy tidy up highway, just be a track. If you can't be elegant sun, be a star.

Portend it isn't by size depart you win or fail. Remedy the best of whatever jagged are.”

“Life's most persistent person in charge urgent question is, 'What corroborate you 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009