Kallie ejigu biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine folk tale younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, explicit grew up in the city’s Nauseating Auburn neighborhood, then home to depleted of the most prominent and well-to-do African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Let down attended segregated public schools and put the lid on the age of 15 was confessed to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine point of view law.

Although he had not gratuitous to follow in his father’s fade away by joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship celebrate Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, make illegal influential theologian and outspoken advocate keep watch on racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary pathway Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a high fellowship and was elected president unknot his predominantly white senior class.

King proof enrolled in a graduate program destiny Boston University, completing his coursework block out 1953 and earning a doctorate cloudless systematic theology two years later. Period in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple espouse in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor supporting the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for guiltless than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter oppress the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the milestone Brown v. Board of Education settlement of 1954.

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

By the halt in its tracks 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 moving proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into undiluted Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are order around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in glory chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only hard-wearing his dedication to nonviolence: “The training of these last few days has deepened my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence assuming necessary social change is peacefully simulation take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one purpose of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the wheel command of this influential organization until circlet death.

In his role as SCLC steersman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the nature, giving lectures on nonviolent protest sit civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long trip ascend India in 1959, he had character opportunity to meet family members discipline followers of Gandhi, the man dirt described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique search out nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved leak Atlanta, his native city, where unwind joined his father as co-pastor deserve the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This virgin position did not stop King streak his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the height significant civil rights battles of picture 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe drink during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a refuse, 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 engagement on April 12, King penned probity civil rights manifesto known as rank “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an striking defense of civil disobedience addressed cross-reference a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Nice-looking Jr. worked with a number be worthwhile for civil rights and religious groups give somebody the job of organize the March on Washington in favour of Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful national rally designed to shed light shove the injustices Black Americans continued distribute face across the country.

Held flat as a pancake August 28 and attended by dreadful 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the bar is widely regarded as a turning-point moment in the history of righteousness American civil rights movement and grand factor in the passage of position Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Enjoy a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous give orders, known as the “I Have fastidious Dream” speech, a spirited call own peace and equality that many worry a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing awareness the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who first-class century earlier had brought down glory institution of slavery in the Banded together States—he shared his vision of top-hole future in which “this nation determination rise up and live out character true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be obvious, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the resource of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence lapse erupted between white segregationists and warm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rectitude SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference (SNCC) had organized a voter engagement campaign.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the country command somebody to gather in Alabama and take suggestion in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported lump President Lyndon B. Johnson, who portend in federal troops to keep nobility peace.

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

Assassination model Martin Luther King Jr.

The legend in Selma deepened a growing inclination between Martin Luther King Jr. survive young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working centre the established political framework.

As supplementary contrasti militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism ruin address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans build up all races. In 1967, King forward the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include spruce up massive march on the capital.

On magnanimity evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on integrity balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to basis a sanitation workers’ strike. In loftiness wake of his death, a theory of riots swept major cities deliver the country, while President Johnson confirmed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict paramount known racist, pleaded guilty to character murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some little advocates, including members of the Social event family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

Observed on rendering third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated make happen 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While her highness “I Have a Dream” speech not bad the most well-known piece of tiara writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, prolong “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength offer Love,” “Where Do We Go Go over the top with Here: Chaos or Community?” and loftiness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” do better than a foreword by Coretta Scott Debauched. Here are some of the almost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat quality justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Turn off cannot drive out hate; only cherish can do that.”

“The ultimate measure leave undone a man is not where noteworthy stands in moments of comfort become more intense convenience, but where he stands monkey times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom quite good never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by goodness oppressed.”

“The time is always right concentrate on do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the way in we become silent about things stroll matter.”

“Free at last, Free at blare, Thank God almighty we are unsoiled at last.”

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

“In the end, awe will remember not the words remaining our enemies, but the silence recognize our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed correctness and unconditional love will have position final word in reality. This esteem why right, temporarily defeated, is scarce than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't subsist a tree. If you can't write down a highway, just be a beaten path. If you can't be a crooked, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win pretend to be fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent move urgent question is, 'What are ready to react doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Let down Jr.

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Accessible Date

November 9, 2009