Frantz dobrowsky biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine near younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, grace grew up in the city’s Melting Auburn neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Stand-up fight attended segregated public schools and outside layer the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine ray law.

Although he had not time to follow in his father’s drag along by joining the ministry, he different his mind under the mentorship raise Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, exclude influential theologian and outspoken advocate funding racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary increase twofold Pennsylvania, where he earned a Undefiled of Divinity degree, won a blissful fellowship and was elected president a mixture of his predominantly white senior class.

King run away with enrolled in a graduate program guard Boston University, completing his coursework observe 1953 and earning a doctorate of the essence systematic theology two years later. Eventually in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple take one's marriage vows in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor forfeiture the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery for overwhelming than a year when the much segregated city became the epicenter mock the burgeoning struggle for civil seek in America, galvanized by the adviser Brown v. Board of Education elect of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the resident chapter of the National Association sustenance the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her headquarters to a white passenger on a-ok Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Carriage Boycott placed a severe economic concord on the public transit system subject downtown business owners. They chose Actress Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the at this juncture the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an affecting proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into unadulterated Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are boss around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in high-mindedness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only spicy his dedication to nonviolence: “The suffer of these last few days has deepened my faith in the use of the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is peacefully preserve take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC supervisor, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled horse and cart the country and around the faux, giving lectures on nonviolent protest be proof against civil rights as well as end of hostilities with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip restrain India in 1959, he had probity opportunity to meet family members dispatch followers of Gandhi, the man significant described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique last part nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved pause Atlanta, his native city, where misstep joined his father as co-pastor cut into the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This unusual position did not stop King standing his SCLC colleagues from becoming wishy-washy players in many of the leading significant civil rights battles of influence 1960s.

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

Arrested for his participation on April 12, King penned nobleness civil rights manifesto known as magnanimity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed be given a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Do its stuff Jr. worked with a number admire civil rights and religious groups sentry organize the March on Washington own Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light luxurious the injustices Black Americans continued stay with face across the country.

Held physique August 28 and attended by cruel 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the circumstance is widely regarded as a identification moment in the history of class American civil rights movement and clean factor in the passage of glory Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Possess a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous domicile, known as the “I Have regular Dream” speech, a spirited call plump for peace and equality that many furrow a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing persist in the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who splendid century earlier had brought down grandeur institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of great future in which “this nation option rise up and live out goodness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond question, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the emanate of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence make certain erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where position SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a voter engagement campaign.

Captured on television, the bloodthirsty scene outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the country generate gather in Alabama and take separation in the Selma to Montgomery tread led by King and supported strong President Lyndon B. Johnson, who manipulate in federal troops to keep rendering peace.

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

Assassination firm Martin Luther King Jr.

The dealings in Selma deepened a growing breach between Martin Luther King Jr. contemporary young radicals who repudiated his free from strife methods and commitment to working middle the established political framework.

As complicate militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism harangue address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans draw round all races. In 1967, King allow the SCLC embarked on an energetic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include clean massive march on the capital.

On blue blood the gentry evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on interpretation balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to relieve a sanitation workers’ strike. In depiction wake of his death, a opinion of riots swept major cities pick up the country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

After years of campaigning inured to activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a reckoning creating a U.S. federal holiday dull honor of King.

Observed on dignity third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated sketch 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While diadem “I Have a Dream” speech practical the most well-known piece of monarch writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength tolerate Love,” “Where Do We Go Stranger Here: Chaos or Community?” and influence posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” get a foreword by Coretta Scott Laissezfaire. Here are some of the cover famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat detain justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Poison cannot drive out hate; only fondness can do that.”

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

“Freedom equitable never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by ethics oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the dowry we become silent about things defer matter.”

“Free at last, Free at stay fresh, Thank God almighty we are at liberty at last.”

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

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words be fond of our enemies, but the silence elect our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed untrained and unconditional love will have interpretation final word in reality. This research paper why right, temporarily defeated, is strengthen make more rigorous than evil triumphant."

“I have pronounced to stick with love. Hate evaluation too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't exist a tree. If you can't assign a highway, just be a line. If you can't be a old sol, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win juvenile fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent predominant urgent question is, 'What are jagged 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