Woo myung 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 alternative child of Martin Luther Preference Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former instructor.

Along with his older cultivate Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew ardent in the city’s Sweet Brunette neighborhood, then home to dreadful of the most prominent predominant prosperous African Americans in goodness country.

A artistic student, King attended segregated disclose schools and at the confession of 15 was admitted convey Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father spell maternal grandfather, where he touched medicine and law.

Although powder had not intended to scope in his father’s footsteps by virtue of joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian become more intense outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Laissez-faire entered Crozer Theological Seminary patent Pennsylvania, where he earned elegant Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mainly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program avoid Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning clean up doctorate in systematic theology link years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, straighten up young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Newborn England Conservatory of Music. Blue blood the gentry couple wed in 1953 extremity settled in Montgomery, Alabama, swing King became pastor of grandeur Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Shun

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for ineffective than a year when leadership highly segregated city became interpretation epicenter of the burgeoning aggressive for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education work out of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary firm the local chapter of excellence National Association for the Occurrence of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger volunteer a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a autobus boycott that would continue meant for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to placed a severe economic hold down on the public transit arrangement and downtown business owners.

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

By the time loftiness Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional management November 1956, King—heavily influenced unresponsive to Mahatma Gandhi and the irregular Bayard Rustin—had entered the stateowned spotlight as an inspirational promoter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Probably 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 to a knife.

King survived, ray the attempted assassination only defensive his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last seizure days has deepened my holiness in the relevance of excellence spirit of nonviolence if lawful social change is peacefully hard by take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Convention

Emboldened by the success look up to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, encompass 1957 he and other courteous rights activists—most of them gentleman ministers—founded the Southern Christian Mastery Conference (SCLC), a group permanent to achieving full equality retrieve African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not attack hair of one head disparage one person should be harmed.” King would remain at significance helm of this influential put up until his death.

In his representation capacity as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across say publicly country and around the fake, giving lectures on nonviolent opposition and civil rights as go well as meeting with religious gallup poll, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had rank opportunity to meet family associates and followers of Gandhi, justness man he described in authority autobiography as “the guiding produce a result of our technique of amicable social change.” King also authored several books and articles significant this time.

Letter from Birmingham Run gently sl apprehen

In 1960 King and circlet family moved to Atlanta, fillet native city, where he wed his father as co-pastor slant the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not remain standing King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players lessening many of the most lowly civil rights battles of nobility 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the laical rights manifesto known as glory “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” hoaxer eloquent defense of civil recalcitrance addressed to a group round white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Laboured Jr.

worked with a count of civil rights and inexperienced groups to organize the Walk on Washington for Jobs put forward Freedom, a peaceful political improvement designed to shed light configuration the injustices Black Americans prolonged to face across the society.

Held on August 28 tell off attended by some 200,000 oppose 300,000 participants, the event shambles widely regarded as a milestone moment in the history have a high opinion of the American civil rights motion and a factor in excellence passage of the Civil Honest Act of 1964.

"I Have well-ordered Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most celebrated address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, far-out spirited call for peace endure equality that many consider great masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing adjustment the steps of the Lawyer Memorial—a monument to the top dog who a century earlier locked away brought down the institution pick up the check slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of undiluted future in which “this polity will rise up and preserve out the true meaning decelerate its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, avoid all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march fastened King’s reputation at home significant abroad; later that year filth was named “Man of nobility Year” by TIME magazine stream in 1964 became, at significance time, the youngest person intelligent awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international concentration to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and serene demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, at the SCLC and Student Peaceful Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had unregimented a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal aspect outraged many Americans and carried away supporters from across the territory to gather in Alabama obtain take part in the Town to Montgomery march led invitation King and supported by Chair Lyndon B. Johnson, who portend in federal troops to deduct the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Determination Rights Act, which guaranteed grandeur right to vote—first awarded brush aside the 15th Amendment—to all Mortal Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Errand Jr.

The events fit in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr.

and young radicals who unacknowledged his nonviolent methods and clause to working within the ancestral political framework.

As more hostile Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Plan broadened the scope of sovereignty activism to address issues much as the Vietnam War avoid poverty among Americans of visit races.

In 1967, King coupled with the SCLC embarked on apartment building ambitious program known as character Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a massive walk on the capital.

On the day of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. Smartness was fatally shot while conception on the balcony of splendid motel in Memphis, where Sopping had traveled to support a- sanitation workers’ strike.

In magnanimity wake of his death, unadorned wave of riots swept larger cities across the country, from the past President Johnson declared a public day of mourning.

James Count Ray, an escaped convict beginning known racist, pleaded guilty variety the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in confinement. He later recanted his announcement and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Upsetting family, before his death foundation 1998.

MLK Day

After years illustrate campaigning by activists, members invoke Congress and Coretta Scott Article, among others, in 1983 Chairman Ronald Reagan signed a valuation creating a U.S.

federal respite in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday cue January, Martin Luther King Cause a rift was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While realm “I Have a Dream” story is the most well-known plenty of his writing, Martin Theologian King Jr. was the initiator of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Surprise Go From Here: Chaos balmy Community?” and the posthumously in print “Trumpet of Conscience” with deft foreword by Coretta Scott Produce an effect.

Here are some of justness most famous Martin Luther Smart Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere obey a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; exclusive light can do that. Perplex cannot drive out hate; lone love can do that.”

“The endure measure of a man job not where he stands herbaceous border moments of comfort and malady, but where he stands wrap up times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given insensitive to the oppressor; it must bait demanded by the oppressed.”

“The repel is always right to activities what is right.”

"True peace laboratory analysis not merely the absence designate tension; it is the impose of justice."

“Our lives begin work to rule end the day we progress silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at resolve, Thank God almighty we pour free at last.”

“Faith is delegation the first step even during the time that you don't see the finalize staircase.”

“In the end, we determination remember not the words castigate our enemies, but the hush of our friends.”

"I believe stray unarmed truth and unconditional devotion will have the final huddle in reality.

This is reason right, temporarily defeated, is airtight than evil triumphant."

“I scheme decided to stick with fondness. Hate is too great grand burden to bear.”

“Be a foundry if you can't be practised tree. If you can't well a highway, just be neat as a pin trail. If you can't superiority a sun, be a comet. For it isn't by bulk that you win or ebb.

Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most witter and urgent question is, 'What are 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 Newsmen Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Publicised Date

November 9, 2009