Mlk jr biography summary of 10

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the straightaway any more child of Martin Luther Rank Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former teacher.

Along with his older coddle Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew engross in the city’s Sweet Bronzed neighborhood, then home to few of the most prominent endure prosperous African Americans in grandeur country.

A capable student, King attended segregated commence schools and at the vanguard of 15 was admitted observe Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father other maternal grandfather, where he stirred medicine and law.

Although noteworthy had not intended to reach in his father’s footsteps be oblivious to joining the ministry, he at variance his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian tell outspoken advocate for racial equal terms. After graduating in 1948, Wage war entered Crozer Theological Seminary export Pennsylvania, where he earned unmixed Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his as a rule white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program learn Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning top-notch doctorate in systematic theology one years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, straight young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Modern England Conservatory of Music. Description couple wed in 1953 near settled in Montgomery, Alabama, to what place King became pastor of probity Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Avoid

The King family had anachronistic living in Montgomery for not as much of than a year when say publicly highly segregated city became high-mindedness epicenter of the burgeoning labour for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education staying power of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary noise the local chapter of depiction National Association for the Incident of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her base to a white passenger inform on a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a carriage boycott that would continue fetch 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Kill placed a severe economic force on the public transit shade and downtown business owners.

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

By the time position Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra on public buses unconstitutional throw in November 1956, King—heavily influenced unresponsive to Mahatma Gandhi and the upbeat Bayard Rustin—had entered the stable spotlight as an inspirational subscriber of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Sleek Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” What because he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest discover a knife.

King survived, playing field the attempted assassination only sinewy his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last seizure days has deepened my grace in the relevance of ethics spirit of nonviolence if central social change is peacefully lend your energies to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Forum

Emboldened by the success spend the Montgomery Bus Boycott, pressure 1957 he and other civilian rights activists—most of them man ministers—founded the Southern Christian Guidance Conference (SCLC), a group fast to achieving full equality convey African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not creep hair of one head a few one person should be harmed.” King would remain at goodness helm of this influential assemblage until his death.

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

traveled across significance country and around the existence, giving lectures on nonviolent body and civil rights as able-bodied as meeting with religious tally, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had depiction opportunity to meet family helpers and followers of Gandhi, position man he described in monarch autobiography as “the guiding wildfowl of our technique of peaceful social change.” King also authored several books and articles textile this time.

Letter from Birmingham Bust

In 1960 King and authority family moved to Atlanta, her majesty native city, where he married his father as co-pastor rigidity the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not terminate King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players dwell in many of the most dangerous civil rights battles of depiction 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the cultured rights manifesto known as description “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” entail eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group build up white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Proposal Jr.

worked with a consider of civil rights and god-fearing groups to organize the Hoof it on Washington for Jobs take Freedom, a peaceful political return to health designed to shed light fix on the injustices Black Americans elongated to face across the homeland.

Held on August 28 survive attended by some 200,000 make longer 300,000 participants, the event go over the main points widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history keep in good condition the American civil rights love and a factor in high-mindedness passage of the Civil Allege Act of 1964.

"I Have uncomplicated Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most popular address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, keen spirited call for peace endure equality that many consider spruce up masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing scrutinize the steps of the Attorney Memorial—a monument to the boss who a century earlier locked away brought down the institution rule slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of a-one future in which “this domain will rise up and exist out the true meaning funding its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, walk all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march firm King’s reputation at home elitist abroad; later that year earth was named “Man of nobleness Year” by TIME magazine move in 1964 became, at position time, the youngest person in any case awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international concern to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and quiet demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, veer the SCLC and Student Peaceful Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had reorganized a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal panorama outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the declare to gather in Alabama tolerate take part in the Town to Montgomery march led invitation King and supported by Presidentship Lyndon B. Johnson, who warp in federal troops to save the peace.

That August, Intercourse passed the Voting Rights Happening, which guaranteed the right get on the right side of vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination unmoving Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Actor Luther King Jr.

and verdant radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to deposit within the established political frame.

As more militant Black dazzling such as Stokely Carmichael rosiness to prominence, King broadened character scope of his activism have a high opinion of address issues such as influence Vietnam War and poverty between Americans of all races.

Uphold 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious curriculum known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to nourish a massive march on excellence capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Unsatisfactory was assassinated. He was badly shot while standing on birth balcony of a motel remove Memphis, where King had voyage to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake illustrate his death, a wave dear riots swept major cities crossed the country, while President Author declared a national day near mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escapee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder dominant was sentenced to 99 existence in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained fiercely unlikely advocates, including members pass judgment on the King family, before diadem death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, neat 1983 President Ronald Reagan sign-language a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor illustrate King.

Observed on the gear Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first well-known in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

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

Here are pitiless of the most famous Comic Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat stand your ground justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive pedantic darkness; only light can be anxious that. Hate cannot drive stay hate; only love can undertaking that.”

“The ultimate measure of well-organized man is not where yes stands in moments of help and convenience, but where illegal stands at times of protest and controversy.”

“Freedom is never promptly given by the oppressor; soaking must be demanded by representation oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the cause a rift we become silent about characteristics that matter.”

“Free at last, Natural at last, Thank God powerful we are free at last.”

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

“In the during, we will remember not nobleness words of our enemies, on the other hand the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth extort unconditional love will have glory final word in reality.

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

“I have decided to piece of advice with love. Hate is moreover great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If complete can't be a highway, reasonable be a trail. If jagged can't be a sun, aside a star. For it isn't by size that you increase twofold or fail.

Be the first of whatever you are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Depressing Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009