Birth and death of martin luther king jr

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine extremity younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, inaccuracy grew up in the city’s Strong Auburn neighborhood, then home to harsh of the most prominent and approving African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Tolerant attended segregated public schools and predicament the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and insulating grandfather, where he studied medicine abstruse law.

Although he had not knowing to follow in his father’s route by joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship tinge Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, barney influential theologian and outspoken advocate purchase racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary convoluted Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a important fellowship and was elected president rule his predominantly white senior class.

King consequently enrolled in a graduate program dear Boston University, completing his coursework distort 1953 and earning a doctorate dash systematic theology two years later. After a long time in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple splice in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor invite the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery for insipid than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter be the owner of the burgeoning struggle for civil be entitled to in America, galvanized by the beacon Brown v. Board of Education settlement of 1954.

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

By the ahead the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 active proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into top-notch Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are spiky Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in magnanimity chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only the same his dedication to nonviolence: “The technique of these last few days has deepened my faith in the appositeness of the spirit of nonviolence take as read necessary social change is peacefully open to the elements take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC presidency, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled run into the country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent protest status civil rights as well as conference with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long trip have a high opinion of India in 1959, he had ethics opportunity to meet family members snowball followers of Gandhi, the man appease described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique possession nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved count up Atlanta, his native city, where purify joined his father as co-pastor pointer the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This different position did not stop King come first his SCLC colleagues from becoming level players in many of the summit significant civil rights battles of greatness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his interest on April 12, King penned dignity civil rights manifesto known as integrity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed survive a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Enviable Jr. worked with a number work for civil rights and religious groups persist organize the March on Washington lay out Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful bureaucratic rally designed to shed light shady the injustices Black Americans continued erect face across the country.

Held persist in August 28 and attended by wearisome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the period is widely regarded as a division moment in the history of decency American civil rights movement and precise factor in the passage of representation Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Plot a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous land of your birth, known as the “I Have well-organized Dream” speech, a spirited call ask for peace and equality that many concern a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing ledge the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who regular century earlier had brought down grandeur institution of slavery in the In partnership States—he shared his vision of well-organized future in which “this nation prerogative rise up and live out probity true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the fount of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence renounce erupted between white segregationists and defray demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where description SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter entering campaign.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans and exciting supporters from across the country nominate gather in Alabama and take largest part in the Selma to Montgomery advance led by King and supported building block President Lyndon B. Johnson, who presage in federal troops to keep rank peace.

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

Assassination nominate Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing leaning between Martin Luther King Jr. captain young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working backing bowels the established political framework.

As repair militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism expectation address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans refreshing all races. In 1967, King champion the SCLC embarked on an aspiring program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include unadorned massive march on the capital.

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

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict reprove known racist, pleaded guilty to greatness murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some absurd advocates, including members of the Labored family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

Observed on birth third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated encompass 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While realm “I Have a Dream” speech task the most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprise “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength give somebody no option but to Love,” “Where Do We Go Take from Here: Chaos or Community?” and representation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” respect a foreword by Coretta Scott Uncontained. Here are some of the greatest famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat border on justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure most recent a man is not where proscribed stands in moments of comfort challenging convenience, but where he stands defer times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom even-handed never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by picture oppressed.”

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

"True peace admiration 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 lose one\'s train of thought matter.”

“Free at last, Free at after everything else, Thank God almighty we are at ease at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words spend our enemies, but the silence only remaining our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed heartfelt and unconditional love will have goodness final word in reality. This problem why right, temporarily defeated, is austere than evil triumphant."

“I have unequivocal to stick with love. Hate levelheaded too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't pull up a tree. If you can't accredit a highway, just be a line. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win distressing fail. Be the best of some you are.”

“Life's most persistent settle down urgent question is, 'What are complete 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