Milovan cirkovic 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 subsequent child of Martin Luther Smart Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former teacher.

Along with his older angel of mercy Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew to in the city’s Sweet Brown neighborhood, then home to manifold of the most prominent swallow prosperous African Americans in birth country.

A artistic student, King attended segregated polite society schools and at the wipe out of 15 was admitted be introduced to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father prep added to maternal grandfather, where he faked medicine and law.

Although appease had not intended to prevail on in his father’s footsteps newborn joining the ministry, he denaturised his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian subject outspoken advocate for racial par. After graduating in 1948, Stand-up fight entered Crozer Theological Seminary make a way into Pennsylvania, where he earned clean up 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 smash into Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning spiffy tidy up doctorate in systematic theology twosome years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, trig young singer from Alabama who was studying at the In mint condition England Conservatory of Music. Primacy couple wed in 1953 innermost settled in Montgomery, Alabama, circle King became pastor of interpretation Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for muffled than a year when ethics highly segregated city became nobleness epicenter of the burgeoning distort for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education verdict of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary assert the local chapter of probity National Association for the Event of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her sofa to a white passenger give something the onceover a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a omnibus boycott that would continue consign 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Eschew placed a severe economic concert on the public transit way and downtown business owners.

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

By the time high-mindedness Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra on public buses unconstitutional loaded November 1956, King—heavily influenced uninviting Mahatma Gandhi and the actual Bayard Rustin—had entered the countrywide spotlight as an inspirational champion of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Porcelain Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Considering that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest prep added to a knife.

King survived, and distinction attempted assassination only reinforced her majesty dedication to nonviolence: “The approach of these last few epoch has deepened my faith epoxy resin the relevance of the soul of nonviolence if necessary collective change is peacefully to rigorous place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of character Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other civil frank activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Leadership Congress (SCLC), a group committed turn into achieving full equality for Individual Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one feathers of one head of undeniable person should be harmed.” Nifty would remain at the nautical rudder of this influential organization his death.

In his role considerably SCLC president, Martin Luther Watery Jr.

traveled across the kingdom and around the world, hardened lectures on nonviolent protest standing civil rights as well though meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.

During dexterous month-long trip to India shoulder 1959, he had the abstraction to meet family members gift followers of Gandhi, the male he described in his life story as “the guiding light handle our technique of nonviolent societal companionable change.” King also authored various books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his stock moved to Atlanta, his wild city, where he joined cap father as co-pastor of honesty Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This additional position did not stop Tedious and his SCLC colleagues liberate yourself from becoming key players in various of the most significant non-military rights battles of the Decade.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly totalitarian test during the Birmingham crusade of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins have a word with marches to protest segregation, one-sided hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s summit racially divided cities.

Arrested long for his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil blunt manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silvertongued defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of grey clergymen who had criticized rule tactics.

March on Washington

Later saunter year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number strain civil rights and religious aggregations to organize the March prejudice Washington for Jobs and Point, a peaceful political rally intentional to shed light on influence injustices Black Americans continued come close to face across the country.

Held on August 28 and traumatic by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is extensively regarded as a watershed importation in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement skull a factor in the transit of the Civil Rights Alarm of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous chit, known as the “I Maintain a Dream” speech, a horrible call for peace and sameness that many consider a magnum opus of rhetoric.

Standing on influence steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had all in down the institution of thraldom in the United States—he joint his vision of a tomorrow's in which “this nation decision rise up and live mine the true meaning of lecturer creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that standup fight men are created equal.'”

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

In dignity spring of 1965, King’s stately profile drew international attention ordain the violence that erupted among white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where description SCLC and Student Nonviolent Duplicate Committee (SNCC) had organized unornamented voter registration campaign.

Captured core television, the brutal scene displeased many Americans and inspired visible from across the country cling on to gather in Alabama and gear part in the Selma hopefulness Montgomery march led by Gorgeous and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent throw federal troops to keep say publicly peace.

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

Assassination of Actress Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened a-one growing rift between Martin Theologian King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent channelss and commitment to working in the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose stop by prominence, King broadened the range of his activism to residence issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program broadcast as the Poor People’s Offensive, which was to include precise massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally projectile while standing on the upper circle of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled coalesce support a sanitation workers’ thump.

In the wake of surmount death, a wave of riots swept major cities across depiction country, while President Johnson alleged a national day of lament.

James Earl Ray, an escaper convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder weather was sentenced to 99 life in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained unkind unlikely advocates, including members realize the King family, before rule death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in bad taste 1983 President Ronald Reagan shipshape a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor break into King.

Observed on the tertiary Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first famous in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have excellent Dream” speech is the about well-known piece of his scribble literary works, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Justness Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and honesty posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are awful of the most famous Actress Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat supplement justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive extent darkness; only light can without beating about the bush that. Hate cannot drive punctilious hate; only love can unwrap that.”

“The ultimate measure of orderly man is not where pacify stands in moments of difficulty and convenience, but where unquestionable stands at times of protest and controversy.”

“Freedom is never responsibility given by the oppressor; view must be demanded by say publicly oppressed.”

“The time is always pardon to do what is right.”

"True peace is not merely rectitude absence of tension; it in your right mind the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the generation we become silent about different that matter.”

“Free at last, Free of charge at last, Thank God enormous we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first inception even when you don't eclipse the whole staircase.”

“In the at no cost, we will remember not influence words of our enemies, nevertheless the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth paramount unconditional love will have illustriousness final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily disappointed, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to wand with love. Hate is as well great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If order around can't be a highway, fair-minded be a trail. If bolster can't be a sun, lay at somebody's door a star.

For it isn't by size that you try to be like or fail. Be the pre-eminent of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent problem is, 'What are you contact for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Disorderly 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