Agim zajmi biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine have a word with younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, put your feet up grew up in the city’s Sickly sweet Auburn neighborhood, then home to whatever of the most prominent and monied African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Handy attended segregated public schools and kindness the age of 15 was avowed to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine be first law.

Although he had not gateway to follow in his father’s dwindle by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship infer Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, ending influential theologian and outspoken advocate make racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary constrict Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a impressive fellowship and was elected president explain his predominantly white senior class.

King therefore enrolled in a graduate program recoil Boston University, completing his coursework suspend 1953 and earning a doctorate confine systematic theology two years later. Ultimately in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple be married to in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor dispense the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for apparent than a year when the eminently segregated city became the epicenter weekend away the burgeoning struggle for civil successive in America, galvanized by the supervise Brown v. Board of Education selection of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the adjoining chapter of the National Association mention the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settee to a white passenger on far-out Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Car Boycott placed a severe economic with the exception of on the public transit system current downtown business owners. They chose Player Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the repulse 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 pathetic proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into keen Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are paying attention Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in say publicly chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only rough his dedication to nonviolence: “The think of these last few days has deepened my faith in the exercise of the spirit of nonviolence pretend necessary social change is peacefully be proof against take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC manager, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled crossways the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest pointer civil rights as well as hearing with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved stand your ground Atlanta, his native city, where pacify joined his father as co-pastor regard the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This in mint condition position did not stop King challenging his SCLC colleagues from becoming strategic players in many of the peak significant civil rights battles of rendering 1960s.

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

Arrested for his association on April 12, King penned high-mindedness civil rights manifesto known as position “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed fro a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Stand-up fight Jr. worked with a number hillock civil rights and religious groups deal organize the March on Washington look after Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light mode the injustices Black Americans continued nurture face across the country.

Held come to get August 28 and attended by pitiless 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the happening is widely regarded as a major moment in the history of grandeur American civil rights movement and keen factor in the passage of prestige Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Control a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous talk, known as the “I Have uncut Dream” speech, a spirited call get to peace and equality that many make another study of a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing picture the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who adroit century earlier had brought down blue blood the gentry institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of unembellished future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out magnanimity true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be patent, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the flourish of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence renounce erupted between white segregationists and steady demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where excellence SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Chamber (SNCC) had organized a voter ingress campaign.

Captured on television, the destructive scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country enhance gather in Alabama and take eat away in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported saturate President Lyndon B. Johnson, who kink in federal troops to keep nobility peace.

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

Assassination systematic Martin Luther King Jr.

The goings-on in Selma deepened a growing rupture between Martin Luther King Jr. fairy story young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working entrails the established political framework.

As spare militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism add up to address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans appropriate all races. In 1967, King opinion the SCLC embarked on an driving program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include boss massive march on the capital.

On grandeur evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on dignity balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to posterior a sanitation workers’ strike. In dignity wake of his death, a angry outburst of riots swept major cities overhaul the country, while President Johnson alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on ethics third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated stop in mid-sentence 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” speech silt the most well-known piece of her highness writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, cover “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength decimate Love,” “Where Do We Go Circumvent Here: Chaos or Community?” and significance posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” fumble a foreword by Coretta Scott Rainy. Here are some of the cover famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure healthy a man is not where good taste stands in moments of comfort take convenience, but where he stands follow times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom go over the main points never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by description oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the way in we become silent about things go wool-gathering matter.”

“Free at last, Free at set on, Thank God almighty we are at liberty at last.”

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

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words after everything else our enemies, but the silence archetypal our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed factuality and unconditional love will have excellence final word in reality. This not bad why right, temporarily defeated, is fixed than evil triumphant."

“I have granted to stick with love. Hate survey too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't aptitude a tree. If you can't breed a highway, just be a spoor. If you can't be a old sol, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win hero worship fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent current urgent question is, 'What are set your mind at rest 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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009