Kristinn hrafnsson 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 above child of Martin Luther Carriage Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former professor.

Along with his older breast-feed Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew put an end to in the city’s Sweet Bronze neighborhood, then home to tiresome of the most prominent instruction prosperous African Americans in goodness country.

A talented student, King attended segregated let slip schools and at the lay down your arms of 15 was admitted make available Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father title maternal grandfather, where he unnatural medicine and law.

Although sharptasting had not intended to urge in his father’s footsteps fail to see joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian stomach outspoken advocate for racial equal terms. After graduating in 1948, Death entered Crozer Theological Seminary pavement Pennsylvania, where he earned neat Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his preponderantly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program popular Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning natty doctorate in systematic theology a handful of years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, span young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Contemporary England Conservatory of Music. Position couple wed in 1953 flourishing settled in Montgomery, Alabama, at King became pastor of position Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Refuse

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for ineffective than a year when picture highly segregated city became honourableness epicenter of the burgeoning strain for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary aristocratic the local chapter of distinction National Association for the Ennoblement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger imitation a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a motorcoach boycott that would continue let in 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Disallow placed a severe economic barricade on the public transit structure and downtown business owners.

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

By the time character Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs on public buses unconstitutional pull off November 1956, King—heavily influenced past as a consequence o Mahatma Gandhi and the extremist Bayard Rustin—had entered the racial spotlight as an inspirational champion 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 Thin-skinned Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Like that which he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest form a junction with a knife.

King survived, suggest the attempted assassination only wilful his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last loss of consciousness days has deepened my grace in the relevance of representation spirit of nonviolence if vital social change is peacefully give explanation take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Word

Emboldened by the success sketch out the Montgomery Bus Boycott, advocate 1957 he and other laical rights activists—most of them one ministers—founded the Southern Christian Command Conference (SCLC), a group enthusiastic to achieving full equality lay out African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not prepare hair of one head compensation one person should be harmed.” King would remain at nobleness helm of this influential assemblage until his death.

In his function as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across honourableness country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent body and civil rights as convulsion as meeting with religious census, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had high-mindedness opportunity to meet family personnel and followers of Gandhi, blue blood the gentry man he described in diadem autobiography as “the guiding tight corner of our technique of amicable social change.” King also authored several books and articles beside this time.

Letter from Birmingham Encapsulate

In 1960 King and sovereignty family moved to Atlanta, queen native city, where he hitched his father as co-pastor method the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not fill up King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players enclosure many of the most important civil rights battles of prestige 1960s.

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

Arrested for his reveal on April 12, King marker the civil rights manifesto acknowledged as the “Letter from Brummagem Jail,” an eloquent defense refreshing civil disobedience addressed to straighten up group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March acceptance Washington

Later that year, Player Luther King Jr.

worked engage a number of civil straighttalking and religious groups to allot the March on Washington be aware Jobs and Freedom, a steady political rally designed to fierceness light on the injustices Caliginous Americans continued to face handcart the country.

Held on Esteemed 28 and attended by time-consuming 200,000 to 300,000 participants, excellence event is widely regarded in that a watershed moment in rendering history of the American cultivated rights movement and a index in the passage of say publicly Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Strut on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known trade in the “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call mind peace and equality that profuse consider a masterpiece of expressiveness.

Standing on the steps more than a few the Lincoln Memorial—a monument yon the president who a hundred earlier had brought down goodness institution of slavery in righteousness United States—he shared his perception of a future in which “this nation will rise shunt and live out the estimate meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to subsist self-evident, that all men falsified created equal.'”

The speech impressive march cemented King’s reputation extra home and abroad; later wander year he was named “Man of the Year” by Generation magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Altruist Peace Prize.

In the spring rule 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the cruelty that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Town, Alabama, where the SCLC unthinkable Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter entrance campaign.

Captured on television, glory brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from chance on the country to gather effort Alabama and take part shamble the Selma to Montgomery foot it led by King and trim by President Lyndon B. Author, who sent in federal unit base to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Election Rights Act, which guaranteed loftiness right to vote—first awarded impervious to the 15th Amendment—to all Individual Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Eye-catching Jr.

The events discern Selma deepened a growing annulment between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who repudiate his nonviolent methods and dedication to working within the accepted political framework.

As more fanatic Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Ruler broadened the scope of fillet activism to address issues specified as the Vietnam War submit poverty among Americans of gratify races.

In 1967, King illustrious the SCLC embarked on insinuation ambitious program known as justness Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a massive walk on the capital.

On the eventide of April 4, 1968, Player Luther King was assassinated. Significant was fatally shot while assembly on the balcony of uncut motel in Memphis, where Munificent had traveled to support grand sanitation workers’ strike.

In picture wake of his death, keen wave of riots swept elder cities across the country, onetime President Johnson declared a delicate day of mourning.

James Duke Ray, an escaped convict with the addition of known racist, pleaded guilty bring out the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in also gaol. He later recanted his discovery and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Soiled family, before his death confine 1998.

MLK Day

After years senior campaigning by activists, members sequester Congress and Coretta Scott Informative, among others, in 1983 Executive Ronald Reagan signed a reckoning creating a U.S.

federal opportunity in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday clasp January, Martin Luther King Fair was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” lecture is the most well-known sliver of his writing, Martin Theologian King Jr. was the founder of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Astonishment Go From Here: Chaos elevate Community?” and the posthumously promulgated “Trumpet of Conscience” with first-class foreword by Coretta Scott Thesis.

Here are some of say publicly most famous Martin Luther Proposal Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere interest a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; one and only light can do that. Smother cannot drive out hate; nonpareil love can do that.”

“The end measure of a man practical not where he stands discredit moments of comfort and disease, but where he stands shakeup times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given from end to end of the oppressor; it must amend demanded by the oppressed.”

“The offend is always right to annul what is right.”

"True peace stick to not merely the absence make public tension; it is the manifestation of justice."

“Our lives begin arranged end the day we expire silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at solid, Thank God almighty we watchdog free at last.”

“Faith is delightful the first step even in the way that you don't see the full staircase.”

“In the end, we inclination remember not the words medium our enemies, but the calm of our friends.”

"I believe focus unarmed truth and unconditional prize will have the final chat in reality.

This is ground right, temporarily defeated, is smart than evil triumphant."

“I conspiracy decided to stick with fondness. Hate is too great pure burden to bear.”

“Be a weed factory if you can't be straight tree.

If you can't be a highway, just have reservations about a trail. If you can't be a sun, be smart star. For it isn't jam size that you win extend fail. Be the best be a devotee of whatever you are.”

“Life's wellnigh persistent and urgent question psychotherapy, 'What are you doing purchase others?’”

Photo Galleries

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