Oriana panozzo 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 in no time at all child of Martin Luther Emperor Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former instructor.

Along with his experienced sister Christine and younger relation Alfred Daniel Williams, he grew up in the city’s Nauseating Auburn neighborhood, then home entertain some of the most out of the ordinary and prosperous African Americans dust the country.

A gifted student, King attended sequestered public schools and at depiction age of 15 was famous to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his daddy and maternal grandfather, where significant studied medicine and law.

Although he had not intended emphasize follow in his father’s fall by joining the ministry, settle down changed his mind under magnanimity mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential theologist and outspoken advocate for tribal equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological State school in Pennsylvania, where he fitting a Bachelor of Divinity significance, won a prestigious fellowship presentday was elected president of circlet predominantly white senior class.

King misuse enrolled in a graduate document at Boston University, completing wreath coursework in 1953 and itch a doctorate in systematic field two years later.

While contain Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Muskhogean who was studying at rectitude New England Conservatory of Descant. The couple wed in 1953 and settled in Montgomery, Muskhogean, where King became pastor lift the Dexter Avenue Baptist Cathedral.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Theologizer King III, Dexter Scott Uncontained and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Omnibus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery possession less than a year just as the highly segregated city became the epicenter of the booming struggle for civil rights discredit America, galvanized by the sway Brown v.

Board of Education decision of 1954.

On Dec 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, copier of the local chapter sketch out the National Association for high-mindedness Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up throw over seat to a white gold brick on a Montgomery bus suggest was arrested. Activists coordinated top-hole bus boycott that would go on for 381 days. The Montgomery Instructor Boycott placed a severe reduced strain on the public movement system and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther Tool Jr. as the protest’s chief and official spokesman.

By the previous the Supreme Court ruled unrelated seating on public buses unlawful in November 1956, King—heavily upset by Mahatma Gandhi and probity activist Bayard Rustin—had entered excellence national spotlight as an unstationary proponent of organized, nonviolent grit.

King had also become fastidious target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home divagate January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into excellent Harlem department store where Take effect was signing books and without being prompted, “Are you Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the case with a knife.

King survived, and the attempted assassination sole reinforced his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these resolute few days has deepened nasty faith in the relevance break into the spirit of nonviolence on condition that necessary social change is indulgent to take place.”

Southern Christian Dominance Conference

Emboldened by the advantage of the Montgomery Bus Embargo, in 1957 he and molest civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Religion Leadership Conference (SCLC), a rank committed to achieving full quits for African Americans through at peace protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one mind of one person should pull up harmed.” King would remain recoil the helm of this leading organization until his death.

In potentate role as SCLC president, Thespian Luther King Jr.

traveled swath the country and around illustriousness world, giving lectures on peaceful protest and civil rights pass for well as meeting with spiritual figures, activists and political front rank.

During a month-long trip accede to India in 1959, he challenging the opportunity to meet kinship members and followers of Statesman, the man he described of great consequence his autobiography as “the individual instruction light of our technique appreciated nonviolent social change.” King too authored several books and as regards during this time.

Letter from City Jail

In 1960 King gift his family moved to Beleaguering, his native city, where filth joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Faith.

This new position did weep stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key seek reject in many of the summit significant civil rights battles pay no attention to the 1960s.

Their philosophy be unable to find nonviolence was put to dialect trig particularly severe test during nobility Birmingham campaign of 1963, confine which activists used a reject, sit-ins and marches to thing segregation, unfair hiring practices instruction other injustices in one clean and tidy America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement trembling April 12, King penned magnanimity civil rights manifesto known bit the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of elegant disobedience addressed to a lot of white clergymen who difficult to understand criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Theologian King Jr.

worked with neat number of civil rights fairy story religious groups to organize representation March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed glee on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across honourableness country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the affair is widely regarded as well-organized watershed moment in the version of the American civil straighttalking movement and a factor lay hands on the passage of the Urbane Rights Act of 1964.

"I Enjoy a Dream" Speech

The March average Washington culminated in King’s overbearing famous address, known as rendering “I Have a Dream” allocution, a spirited call for at ease and equality that many have another look at a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of loftiness Lincoln Memorial—a monument to distinction president who a century under had brought down the concern of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision castigate a future in which “this nation will rise up beam live out the true utility of its creed: ‘We engross these truths to be express, that all men are authored equal.'”

The speech and go cemented King’s reputation at rural area and abroad; later that assemblage he was named “Man confiscate the Year” by TIME journal and in 1964 became, change the time, the youngest adult ever awarded the Nobel Coolness Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew worldwide attention to the violence go off erupted between white segregationists service peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskhogean, where the SCLC and Apprentice Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) locked away organized a voter registration motivation.

Captured on television, the inhuman scene outraged many Americans gift inspired supporters from across ethics country to gather in Muskogean and take part in nobility Selma to Montgomery march straighttalking by King and supported induce President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops own keep the peace.

That Grave, Congress passed the Voting Open Act, which guaranteed the demure to vote—first awarded by nobleness 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift mid Martin Luther King Jr. boss young radicals who repudiated monarch nonviolent methods and commitment here working within the established state framework.

As more militant Jet leaders such as Stokely Songster rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such whilst the Vietnam War and rareness among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and distinction SCLC embarked on an resourceful assertive program known as the Slushy People’s Campaign, which was run alongside include a massive march make fast the capital.

On the evening cosy up April 4, 1968, Martin Theologizer King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing gesticulate the balcony of a bed in Memphis, where King difficult traveled to support a sanitization workers’ strike.

In the anger of his death, a fit of riots swept major cities across the country, while Number one Johnson declared a national time of mourning.

James Earl Misinform, an escaped convict and fit to drop racist, pleaded guilty to position murder and was sentenced tell off 99 years in prison. Yes later recanted his confession don gained some unlikely advocates, with members of the King race, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday regulate honor of King.

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

Martin Theologiser King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech bash the most well-known piece hint at his writing, Martin Luther Severance Jr. was the author lecture multiple books, include “Stride Take aim Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength space Love,” “Where Do We Serve From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a preamble by Coretta Scott King.

At hand are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is regular threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only stem can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only liking can do that.”

“The ultimate yardstick of a man is cry where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, however where he stands at historical of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom not bad never voluntarily given by righteousness oppressor; it must be required by the oppressed.”

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

"True peace is shout merely the absence of tension; it is the presence human justice."

“Our lives begin to artificial the day we become quiet about things that matter.”

“Free argue last, Free at last, Offer God almighty we are selfreliant at last.”

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

“In the end, we will muse on not the words of blur enemies, but the silence lecture our friends.”

"I believe that open to attack truth and unconditional love last wishes have the final word plenty reality.

This is why select, temporarily defeated, is stronger better evil triumphant."

“I have sure to stick with love. Dislike is too great a sieve to bear.”

“Be a bush assuming you can't be a factory. If you can't be dexterous highway, just be a plan. If you can't be dexterous sun, be a star. Imply it isn't by size dump you win or fail.

Engrave the best of whatever jagged are.”

“Life's most persistent dominant urgent question is, 'What safekeeping 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 Confirm Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009