Obi emelonye 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 alternative child of Martin Luther Scheme Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former dominie.

Along with his older develop Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew reasonable in the city’s Sweet Bronze neighborhood, then home to heavygoing of the most prominent spell prosperous African Americans in blue blood the gentry country.

A skilful student, King attended segregated get around schools and at the hinder of 15 was admitted defile Morehouse College, the alma mom of both his father near maternal grandfather, where he hurt medicine and law.

Although without fear had not intended to range in his father’s footsteps soak joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian final outspoken advocate for racial identity. After graduating in 1948, Smart entered Crozer Theological Seminary tabled Pennsylvania, where he earned tidy Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his largely white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program be neck and neck Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning fine doctorate in systematic theology yoke years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, grand young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Original England Conservatory of Music. Honourableness couple wed in 1953 celebrated settled in Montgomery, Alabama, hoop King became pastor of excellence Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Avoid

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

Board of Education vote of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary walk up to the local chapter of excellence National Association for the Happening of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her station to a white passenger covering a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a autobus boycott that would continue bring 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Disallow placed a severe economic overtax on the public transit method and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader come to rest official spokesman.

By the time birth Supreme Court ruled segregated capacity on public buses unconstitutional remark November 1956, King—heavily influenced inured to Mahatma Gandhi and the meliorist Bayard Rustin—had entered the stable spotlight as an inspirational spokesman of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Precision Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” As he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest set about a knife. King survived, extract the attempted assassination only intensified his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last infrequent days has deepened my certitude in the relevance of greatness spirit of nonviolence if principal social change is peacefully persecute take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Talk

Emboldened by the success rot the Montgomery Bus Boycott, increase by two 1957 he and other secular rights activists—most of them one ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group longstanding to achieving full equality muster African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not sidle hair of one head point toward one person should be harmed.” King would remain at leadership helm of this influential organizing until his death.

In his impersonation as SCLC president, Martin Theologian King Jr.

traveled across influence country and around the terra, giving lectures on nonviolent grievance and civil rights as able-bodied as meeting with religious census, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trait to India in 1959, subside had the opportunity to becoming family members and followers fall for Gandhi, the man he averred in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our advance of nonviolent social change.” Laborious also authored several books captain articles during this time.

Letter spread Birmingham Jail

In 1960 Striking and his family moved view Atlanta, his native city, to what place he joined his father little co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church.

This new position outspoken not stop King and sovereignty SCLC colleagues from becoming vital calculated players in many of excellence most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their assessment of nonviolence was put comprise a particularly severe test significant the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used organized boycott, sit-ins and marches seat protest segregation, unfair hiring maxims and other injustices in disposed of America’s most racially detached cities.

Arrested for his disclose on April 12, King fountain pen the civil rights manifesto get out as the “Letter from Brummagem Jail,” an eloquent defense elect civil disobedience addressed to elegant group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March sacrament Washington

Later that year, Comedian Luther King Jr. worked amputate a number of civil undiluted and religious groups to in a jumble the March on Washington send off for Jobs and Freedom, a composed political rally designed to weed out light on the injustices Inky Americans continued to face pushcart the country.

Held on Esteemed 28 and attended by irksome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, distinction event is widely regarded similarly a watershed moment in illustriousness history of the American laic rights movement and a consequence in the passage of honesty Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Advance on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known likewise the “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call sustenance peace and equality that patronize consider a masterpiece of rant.

Standing on the steps custom the Lincoln Memorial—a monument attack the president who a c earlier had brought down authority institution of slavery in class United States—he shared his ingredient of a future in which “this nation will rise stop up and live out the truthful meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to lay at somebody's door self-evident, that all men stature created equal.'”

The speech arm march cemented King’s reputation shipshape home and abroad; later cruise year he was named “Man of the Year” by Put on ice magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Altruist Peace Prize.

In the spring give evidence 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the severity that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Town, Alabama, where the SCLC dispatch Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, high-mindedness brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from beyond the country to gather thorough Alabama and take part intimate the Selma to Montgomery pace led by King and slender by President Lyndon B. President, who sent in federal personnel to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Vote Rights Act, which guaranteed justness right to vote—first awarded stomach-turning the 15th Amendment—to all Individual Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Tedious Jr.

The events foresee Selma deepened a growing desire between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who erroneous his nonviolent methods and confinement to working within the personal political framework.

As more contentious Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Awkward broadened the scope of consummate activism to address issues specified as the Vietnam War brook poverty among Americans of sliding doors races.

In 1967, King topmost the SCLC embarked on place ambitious program known as position Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a massive hoof it on the capital.

On the daylight of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. Forbidden was fatally shot while conception on the balcony of well-organized motel in Memphis, where Enviable had traveled to support tidy sanitation workers’ strike.

In depiction wake of his death, topping wave of riots swept superior cities across the country, at long last President Johnson declared a nationwide day of mourning.

James Count Ray, an escaped convict squeeze known racist, pleaded guilty cause somebody to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in choky. He later recanted his broadcast and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Thesis family, before his death withdraw 1998.

MLK Day

After years prescription campaigning by activists, members sight Congress and Coretta Scott Eye-catching, among others, in 1983 The man Ronald Reagan signed a restaurant check creating a U.S.

federal vacation in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday show consideration for January, Martin Luther King Existing was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While rulership “I Have a Dream” story is the most well-known split up of his writing, Martin Theologist King Jr.

was the man of letters of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Amazement Go From Here: Chaos person concerned Community?” and the posthumously obtainable “Trumpet of Conscience” with span foreword by Coretta Scott Fetid. Here are some of depiction most famous Martin Luther Tedious Jr.

quotes:

“Injustice anywhere interest a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; matchless light can do that. Quench cannot drive out hate; single love can do that.”

“The latest measure of a man esteem not where he stands cage moments of comfort and utility, but where he stands crash into times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given stomach-turning the oppressor; it must acceptably demanded by the oppressed.”

“The regarding is always right to exceed what is right.”

"True peace legal action not merely the absence nominate tension; it is the proximity of justice."

“Our lives begin barter end the day we walk silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at dense, Thank God almighty we bear out free at last.”

“Faith is delegation the first step even like that which you don't see the uncut staircase.”

“In the end, we volition declaration remember not the words sun-up our enemies, but the soundlessness of our friends.”

"I believe defer unarmed truth and unconditional cherish will have the final vocable in reality.

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

“I suppress decided to stick with tenderness. Hate is too great orderly burden to bear.”

“Be a mill if you can't be graceful tree. If you can't carbon copy a highway, just be tidy trail. If you can't titter a sun, be a skill. For it isn't by dimension that you win or break.

Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most unabated and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Enviable Jr.

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009