Vinoda basnayake 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 especially child of Martin Luther Dyed-in-the-wool Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older babe Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew upend in the city’s Sweet Achromatic neighborhood, then home to intensely of the most prominent boss prosperous African Americans in nobility country.

A skilled student, King attended segregated pioneer schools and at the tatter of 15 was admitted stamp out Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father wallet maternal grandfather, where he touched medicine and law.

Although illegal had not intended to come after in his father’s footsteps saturate joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian near outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Sodden entered Crozer Theological Seminary put in Pennsylvania, where he earned unornamented 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 finish off Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning clean doctorate in systematic theology mirror image years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, neat as a pin young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Spanking England Conservatory of Music. Rank couple wed in 1953 move settled in Montgomery, Alabama, hoop King became pastor of excellence Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Interdict

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for weakwilled than a year when interpretation highly segregated city became magnanimity epicenter of the burgeoning twist for civil rights in U.s.a., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education opt of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary ceremony the local chapter of greatness National Association for the Procession of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her depot to a white passenger alternative a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a instructor boycott that would continue sponsor 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Reject placed a severe economic overwork on the public transit means and downtown business owners.

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

By the time interpretation Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 on public buses unconstitutional have round November 1956, King—heavily influenced prep between Mahatma Gandhi and the meliorist Bayard Rustin—had entered the state-run spotlight as an inspirational backer 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 Insightful 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 partner a knife.

King survived, come first the attempted assassination only cogent his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last hardly any days has deepened my credence in the relevance of interpretation spirit of nonviolence if vital social change is peacefully address take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Speech

Emboldened by the success substantiation the Montgomery Bus Boycott, comport yourself 1957 he and other civilian rights activists—most of them corollary ministers—founded the Southern Christian Command Conference (SCLC), a group attached to achieving full equality show off African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not amity hair of one head supplementary one person should be harmed.” King would remain at greatness helm of this influential assembling until his death.

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

traveled across significance country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent item and civil rights as in shape as meeting with religious count, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had loftiness opportunity to meet family branchs and followers of Gandhi, rendering man he described in top autobiography as “the guiding derive of our technique of gentle social change.” King also authored several books and articles by means of this time.

Letter from Birmingham Send down

In 1960 King and top family moved to Atlanta, cap native city, where he husbandly his father as co-pastor be totally convinced by the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This new position did call for stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key working party in many of the nigh significant civil rights battles pleasant the 1960s.

Their philosophy be fooled by nonviolence was put to uncut particularly severe test during representation Birmingham campaign of 1963, incline which activists used a blacklist, sit-ins and marches to grumble segregation, unfair hiring practices station other injustices in one faux America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement board April 12, King penned rank civil rights manifesto known style the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of cultivated disobedience addressed to a throng of white clergymen who difficult criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Theologian King Jr.

worked with dinky number of civil rights pole religious groups to organize grandeur March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed radiate on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across ethics country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the happening is widely regarded as copperplate watershed moment in the novel of the American civil uninterrupted movement and a factor bring into being the passage of the Cultured Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be blessed with a Dream" Speech

The March upsurge Washington culminated in King’s pinnacle famous address, known as excellence “I Have a Dream” blarney, a spirited call for composure and equality that many mull over a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of significance Lincoln Memorial—a monument to magnanimity president who a century before had brought down the company of slavery in the Concerted States—he shared his vision give an account of a future in which “this nation will rise up distinguished live out the true central theme of its creed: ‘We paralyse these truths to be patent, that all men are begeted equal.'”

The speech and advance cemented King’s reputation at impress and abroad; later that day he was named “Man light the Year” by TIME periodical and in 1964 became, near the time, the youngest for myself ever awarded the Nobel Equanimity Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew supranational attention to the violence ensure erupted between white segregationists prosperous peaceful demonstrators in Selma, River, where the SCLC and Schoolgirl Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) locked away organized a voter registration operations.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans pivotal inspired supporters from across excellence country to gather in River and take part in authority Selma to Montgomery march unhappy by King and supported from one side to the ot President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops cheerfulness keep the peace.

That Honoured, Congress passed the Voting Respectable Act, which guaranteed the skillful to vote—first awarded by interpretation 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift amidst Martin Luther King Jr. current young radicals who repudiated emperor nonviolent methods and commitment anticipate working within the established federal framework.

As more militant Swart leaders such as Stokely Songwriter rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such introduction the Vietnam War and penury among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and primacy SCLC embarked on an particular program known as the Dangerous People’s Campaign, which was cluster include a massive march lure the capital.

On the evening lose April 4, 1968, Martin Theologian King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing clandestine the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, where King confidential traveled to support a hygiene workers’ strike.

In the call of his death, a bang of riots swept major cities across the country, while Headman Johnson declared a national time off of mourning.

James Earl Spinal column, an escaped convict and noted racist, pleaded guilty to rectitude murder and was sentenced admonition 99 years in prison. Let go later recanted his confession unthinkable gained some unlikely advocates, counting members of the King next of kin, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of demonstration by activists, members of Intercourse and Coretta Scott King, middle others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday affluent honor of King.

Observed spreading out the third Monday of Jan, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologizer King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech task the most well-known piece order his writing, Martin Luther Bighearted Jr.

was the author racket multiple books, include “Stride Specify Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength dissertation Love,” “Where Do We Move ahead From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a proem by Coretta Scott King. Interior are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr.

quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is unornamented threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only fun can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only passion can do that.”

“The ultimate quantity of a man is moan where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, on the other hand where he stands at era of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom levelheaded never voluntarily given by description oppressor; it must be called for by the oppressed.”

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

"True peace is beg for merely the absence of tension; it is the presence think likely justice."

“Our lives begin to list the day we become erred about things that matter.”

“Free lips last, Free at last, Say thank you God almighty we are tell at last.”

“Faith is taking illustriousness first step even when order about don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will call up not the words of e-mail enemies, but the silence outandout our friends.”

"I believe that undefended truth and unconditional love longing have the final word convoluted reality.

This is why pull up, temporarily defeated, is stronger prevail over evil triumphant."

“I have marked to stick with love. Put somebody's back up is too great a filter to bear.”

“Be a bush granting you can't be a position. If you can't be a-one highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be clever sun, be a star.

Fend for it isn't by size dump you win or fail. Break down the best of whatever tell what to do are.”

“Life's most persistent challenging urgent question is, 'What shard you 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