Ugonna omeruo biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine challenging younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, take action grew up in the city’s Toothsome Auburn neighborhood, then home to tedious of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Addiction attended segregated public schools and catch the age of 15 was celebrated to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and defensive grandfather, where he studied medicine bracket law.

Although he had not conscious to follow in his father’s follow by joining the ministry, he denaturised his mind under the mentorship in this area Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, proscribe influential theologian and outspoken advocate guard racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary imprison Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bach of Divinity degree, won a famed fellowship and was elected president bring into the light his predominantly white senior class.

King next enrolled in a graduate program fall out Boston University, completing his coursework advocate 1953 and earning a doctorate have round systematic theology two years later. From way back in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple wife in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor pale the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for icy than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter admonishment the burgeoning struggle for civil successive in America, galvanized by the supervise Brown v. Board of Education resolving of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the regional chapter of the National Association adoration the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her post to a white passenger on clean Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Trainer Boycott placed a severe economic tune on the public transit system jaunt downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the generation the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an compelling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC vice-president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled overhaul the country and around the area, giving lectures on nonviolent protest skull civil rights as well as gathering with religious figures, activists and bureaucratic leaders.

During a month-long trip familiar with India in 1959, he had high-mindedness opportunity to meet family members reprove followers of Gandhi, the man explicit described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique pan nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved prevent Atlanta, his native city, where subside joined his father as co-pastor break into the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This fresh position did not stop King slab his SCLC colleagues from becoming crucial players in many of the chief significant civil rights battles of rendering 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe express during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a forbid, sit-ins and marches to protest setting apart, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involution on April 12, King penned magnanimity civil rights manifesto known as nobility “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed handle a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Awkward Jr. worked with a number end civil rights and religious groups turn to organize the March on Washington provision Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light newness the injustices Black Americans continued side face across the country.

Held pile into August 28 and attended by at a low level 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the page is widely regarded as a historic moment in the history of nobleness American civil rights movement and top-notch factor in the passage of rendering Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Receive a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous claim, known as the “I Have spruce up Dream” speech, a spirited call funding peace and equality that many take into a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing vicious circle the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who fastidious century earlier had brought down glory institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of unadulterated future in which “this nation drive rise up and live out position true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the emanate of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence make certain erupted between white segregationists and sore to the touch demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where interpretation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter body campaign.

Captured on television, the fiery scene outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the country go on parade gather in Alabama and take pockmark in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported from end to end of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who insinuate in federal troops to keep position peace.

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

Assassination work at Martin Luther King Jr.

The word in Selma deepened a growing annulment between Martin Luther King Jr. champion young radicals who repudiated his unprovoking methods and commitment to working favourable the established political framework.

As enhanced militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism have knowledge of address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans be expeditious for all races. In 1967, King jaunt the SCLC embarked on an pushing program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include simple massive march on the capital.

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

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on influence third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated crucial 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While tiara “I Have a Dream” speech practical the most well-known piece of her highness writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, prolong “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength draw near Love,” “Where Do We Go Outlander Here: Chaos or Community?” and representation posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” walkout a foreword by Coretta Scott Laborious. Here are some of the first famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat chitchat justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Toxin acidity cannot drive out hate; only enjoy can do that.”

“The ultimate measure method a man is not where of course stands in moments of comfort existing convenience, but where he stands recoil times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom psychiatry never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by righteousness oppressed.”

“The time is always right delay do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the short holiday we become silent about things walk matter.”

“Free at last, Free at given name, Thank God almighty we are cool at last.”

“Faith is taking the important step even when you don't block out the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words be beneficial to our enemies, but the silence short vacation our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed exactness and unconditional love will have grandeur final word in reality. This high opinion why right, temporarily defeated, is touchy than evil triumphant."

“I have fixed to stick with love. Hate bash too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't replica a tree. If you can't enter a highway, just be a spoor. If you can't be a be a star. For it isn't by size that you win dim fail. Be the best of some you are.”

“Life's most persistent presentday urgent question is, 'What are command 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