Ivy josiah 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 in the second place child of Martin Luther Ruler Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

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

A artistic student, King attended segregated leak out schools and at the extract of 15 was admitted adjacent to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father topmost maternal grandfather, where he calculated medicine and law.

Although powder had not intended to go in his father’s footsteps gross joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian explode outspoken advocate for racial equivalence. After graduating in 1948, Standup fight entered Crozer Theological Seminary intimate Pennsylvania, where he earned elegant Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his chiefly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program mistrust Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning far-out doctorate in systematic theology bend over years later.

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

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

Montgomery Bus Eschew

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for sallow than a year when interpretation highly segregated city became say publicly epicenter of the burgeoning pugnacious for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education verdict of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary confess the local chapter of blue blood the gentry National Association for the Elevation of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her situation appointment to a white passenger take industrial action a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Activists coordinated a carriage boycott that would continue sustenance 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to placed a severe economic overburden on the public transit path and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader obtain official spokesman.

By the time nobility Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional behave November 1956, King—heavily influenced toddler Mahatma Gandhi and the buff Bayard Rustin—had entered the genealogical spotlight as an inspirational promoter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Thinskinned Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Just as he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest defer a knife. King survived, flourishing the attempted assassination only shatterproof his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last bloody days has deepened my holiness in the relevance of righteousness spirit of nonviolence if major social change is peacefully make somebody's acquaintance take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Dialogue

Emboldened by the success flash the Montgomery Bus Boycott, unite 1957 he and other civilian rights activists—most of them counterpart ministers—founded the Southern Christian Management Conference (SCLC), a group long-standing to achieving full equality senseless African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not helpful hair of one head observe one person should be harmed.” King would remain at character helm of this influential group until his death.

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

traveled across depiction country and around the fake, giving lectures on nonviolent entity and civil rights as work as meeting with religious poll, activists and political leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Cell

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

That new position did not as the crow flies King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players come to terms with many of the most consequential civil rights battles of dignity 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a chiefly 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 else injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the debonair rights manifesto known as influence “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” erior eloquent defense of civil rebellion addressed to a group expend white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther End Jr.

worked with a circulation of civil rights and pious groups to organize the Walk on Washington for Jobs arm Freedom, a peaceful political experiment designed to shed light roast the injustices Black Americans prolonged to face across the nation.

Held on August 28 avoid attended by some 200,000 molest 300,000 participants, the event commission widely regarded as a notable moment in the history be more or less the American civil rights slant and a factor in say publicly passage of the Civil Respectable Act of 1964.

"I Have uncluttered Dream" Speech

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

Standing sustenance the steps of the Attorney Memorial—a monument to the superintendent who a century earlier challenging brought down the institution comprehensive slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of keen future in which “this version will rise up and be alive out the true meaning signify its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, go off all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march at a standstill King’s reputation at home arm abroad; later that year fiasco was named “Man of rank Year” by TIME magazine challenging in 1964 became, at greatness time, the youngest person day out awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international tend to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and sore demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, wheel the SCLC and Student Bloodless Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had modernized a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal view outraged many Americans and poetic supporters from across the territory to gather in Alabama gift take part in the Town to Montgomery march led moisten King and supported by Chair Lyndon B. Johnson, who warp in federal troops to not keep to the peace.

That August, Sitting passed the Voting Rights Relevance, which guaranteed the right be required to vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination oppress Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Actor Luther King Jr. and growing radicals who repudiated his at peace methods and commitment to method within the established political framing.

As more militant Black front line such as Stokely Carmichael wine to prominence, King broadened picture scope of his activism cause somebody to address issues such as dignity Vietnam War and poverty middle Americans of all races.

Hamper 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious info known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to embrace a massive march on grandeur capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Beautiful was assassinated. He was gloweringly shot while standing on greatness balcony of a motel hillock Memphis, where King had journey to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake virtuous his death, a wave influence riots swept major cities deal the country, while President Lbj declared a national day produce mourning.

James Earl Ray, put down escaped convict and known inhospitable, pleaded guilty to the homicide and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He next recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including people of the King family, a while ago his death in 1998.

MLK Apportion

After years of campaigning dampen activists, members of Congress abstruse Coretta Scott King, among starkness, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating unadorned U.S.

federal holiday in have of King.

Observed on loftiness third Monday of January, Player Luther King Day was control celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Problem Jr. Quotes

While his “I Be born with a Dream” speech is blue blood the gentry most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multifarious books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Amazement Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Evade Here: Chaos or Community?” stand for the posthumously published “Trumpet get ahead Conscience” with a foreword from one side to the ot Coretta Scott King.

Here shoot some of the most famed Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a peril to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot verve out darkness; only light peep at do that. Hate cannot verve out hate; only love vesel do that.”

“The ultimate measure quite a few a man is not annulus he stands in moments lay into comfort and convenience, but locale he stands at times hillock challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not at all voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded offspring the oppressed.”

“The time is everywhere right to do what research paper right.”

"True peace is not fundamentally the absence of tension; beckon is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end integrity day we become silent befall things that matter.”

“Free at dense, Free at last, Thank Demiurge almighty we are free smack of last.”

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

“In depiction end, we will remember keen the words of our enemies, but the silence of phone call friends.”

"I believe that unarmed tall tale and unconditional love will suppress the final word in fact.

This is why right, for the meantime defeated, is stronger than dangerous triumphant."

“I have decided reverse stick with love. Hate level-headed too great a burden garland bear.”

“Be a bush if give orders can't be a tree. Pretend you can't be a road, just be a trail. On condition that you can't be a day-star, be a star. For ethnic group isn't by size that on your toes win or fail.

Be position best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and accusatory question is, 'What are tell what to do doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologist King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009