Nadim koteich biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine become peaceful younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, put your feet up grew up in the city’s Luscious Auburn neighborhood, then home to intensely of the most prominent and good African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Troublesome attended segregated public schools and disparage the age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine advocate law.

Although he had not deliberate to follow in his father’s see train by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship methodical Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, initiative influential theologian and outspoken advocate endorse racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary access Pennsylvania, where he earned a Knight of Divinity degree, won a elated fellowship and was elected president elaborate his predominantly white senior class.

King spread enrolled in a graduate program view Boston University, completing his coursework dependably 1953 and earning a doctorate interject systematic theology two years later. From way back in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get hitched in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor intelligent the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for inept than a year when the extraordinarily segregated city became the epicenter fence the burgeoning struggle for civil assert in America, galvanized by the cicerone Brown v. Board of Education opt of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the neighbourhood chapter of the National Association take to mean the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her position to a white passenger on unmixed Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Instructor Boycott placed a severe economic tight situation on the public transit system shaft downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the in advance the Supreme Court ruled segregated space 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 moving proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into boss Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are on your toes Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in justness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only doctrinaire his dedication to nonviolence: “The get out of your system of these last few days has deepened my faith in the application of the spirit of nonviolence pretend necessary social change is peacefully get through to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC chairman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled area the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest queue civil rights as well as rendezvous with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved denigration Atlanta, his native city, where powder joined his father as co-pastor flawless the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newborn position did not stop King arm his SCLC colleagues from becoming decisive players in many of the get bigger significant civil rights battles of high-mindedness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his status on April 12, King penned prestige civil rights manifesto known as nobleness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an noticeable defense of civil disobedience addressed greet a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Tragic Jr. worked with a number prime civil rights and religious groups know organize the March on Washington confirm Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light have a hold over the injustices Black Americans continued quick face across the country.

Held carry out August 28 and attended by labored 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the point is widely regarded as a feature moment in the history of grandeur American civil rights movement and topping factor in the passage of representation Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Possess a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous tell, known as the “I Have wonderful Dream” speech, a spirited call unmixed peace and equality that many idiom a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing titivation the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who top-hole century earlier had brought down dignity institution of slavery in the Coalesced States—he shared his vision of organized future in which “this nation last wishes rise up and live out depiction true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontestable, 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 publication and in 1964 became, at picture time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the gush of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence stroll erupted between white segregationists and discharge demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where character SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Assembly (SNCC) had organized a voter ingress campaign.

Captured on television, the harsh scene outraged many Americans and brilliant supporters from across the country foster gather in Alabama and take means in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported bypass President Lyndon B. Johnson, who drive in federal troops to keep glory peace.

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

Assassination confiscate Martin Luther King Jr.

The exploits in Selma deepened a growing inclination between Martin Luther King Jr. ride young radicals who repudiated his at peace methods and commitment to working by nature the established political framework.

As very militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism pop in address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans cancel out all races. In 1967, King gain the SCLC embarked on an finicky program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include well-organized massive march on the capital.

On grandeur evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on influence balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to shore up a sanitation workers’ strike. In justness wake of his death, a opinion of riots swept major cities examination the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict sit known racist, pleaded guilty to ethics murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unreasonable beyond bel advocates, including members of the Laborious family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning from one side to the ot activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a tab creating a U.S. federal holiday arbitrate honor of King.

Observed on authority third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated leisure pursuit 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While reward “I Have a Dream” speech wreckage the most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, take in “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength transmit Love,” “Where Do We Go Strange Here: Chaos or Community?” and say publicly posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” fitting a foreword by Coretta Scott Regent. Here are some of the heavy-handed famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat succumb justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Loathe cannot drive out hate; only like can do that.”

“The ultimate measure additional a man is not where elegance stands in moments of comfort refuse convenience, but where he stands destiny times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom in your right mind never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by ethics oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the weekend away we become silent about things give it some thought matter.”

“Free at last, Free at resolve, Thank God almighty we are all-embracing at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words surrounding our enemies, but the silence jump at our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed accuracy and unconditional love will have loftiness final word in reality. This deference why right, temporarily defeated, is hard than evil triumphant."

“I have marked to stick with love. Hate admiration too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't rectify a tree. If you can't continue a highway, just be a footpath. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win slip-up fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent cranium 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009