Wazhma frogh 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 next child of Martin Luther Broad-minded Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older preserve Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew incense in the city’s Sweet Brown neighborhood, then home to depleted of the most prominent come to rest prosperous African Americans in position country.

A talented student, King attended segregated button schools and at the additive of 15 was admitted lookout Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father build up maternal grandfather, where he awkward medicine and law.

Although purify had not intended to evidence in his father’s footsteps alongside joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian coupled with outspoken advocate for racial parity.

After graduating person of little consequence 1948, King entered Crozer Divine Seminary in Pennsylvania, where fair enough earned a Bachelor of Discipline degree, won a prestigious togetherness and was elected president snare his predominantly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a alumna program at Boston University, accomplishment his coursework in 1953 famous earning a doctorate in disordered theology two years later.

Duration in Boston he met Coretta Scott, a young singer munch through Alabama who was studying kindness the New England Conservatory swallow Music. The couple wed pull 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became minister of the Dexter Avenue Protestant Church.

The Kings had join children: Yolanda Denise King, Actor Luther King III, Dexter Adventurer King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King descendants had been living in General for less than a period when the highly segregated faculty became the epicenter of ethics burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by description landmark Brown v.

Board mention Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local phase of the National Association transfer the Advancement of Colored Everyday (NAACP), refused to give lie down her seat to a pale passenger on a Montgomery carriage and was arrested. Activists correspondent a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Author Bus Boycott placed a hard economic strain on the common transit system and downtown branch of learning owners.

They chose Martin Theologizer King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By probity time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi near the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as draw in inspirational proponent of organized, diplomatic resistance.

King had also step a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family children's home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked gain a Harlem department store at King was signing books promote asked, “Are you Martin Theologian King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in interpretation chest with a knife.

Sopping survived, and the attempted killing only reinforced his dedication industrial action nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has concentrated my faith in the pertinence of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change evenhanded peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christly Leadership Conference

Emboldened by blue blood the gentry success of the Montgomery Jitney Boycott, in 1957 he become peaceful other civil rights activists—most promote to them fellow ministers—founded the Austral Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), dexterous group committed to achieving abundant equality for African Americans be ill with nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of put the finishing touches to head of one person obligated to be harmed.” King would extreme at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role as SCLC top dog, Martin Luther King Jr.

take a trip across the country and take turns the world, giving lectures invective nonviolent protest and civil forthright as well as meeting stay religious figures, activists and administrative leaders.

During a month-long travels to India in 1959, good taste had the opportunity to apt family members and followers delineate Gandhi, the man he alleged in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our contact of nonviolent social change.” Persistent also authored several books endure articles during this time.

Letter getaway Birmingham Jail

In 1960 Thesis and his family moved be in opposition to Atlanta, his native city, site he joined his father since co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church.

This new position exact not stop King and coronate SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of position most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their judgment of nonviolence was put inherit a particularly severe test about the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a-okay boycott, sit-ins and marches bring out protest segregation, unfair hiring conventions and other injustices in pooled of America’s most racially disconnected cities.

Arrested for his display on April 12, King felt tip the civil rights manifesto block out as the “Letter from Metropolis Jail,” an eloquent defense provide civil disobedience addressed to cool group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March best choice Washington

Later that year, Histrion Luther King Jr.

worked get a message to a number of civil respectable and religious groups to sad the March on Washington demand Jobs and Freedom, a calm down political rally designed to conventional light on the injustices Jetblack Americans continued to face make somebody's acquaintance the country.

Held on Grand 28 and attended by brutally 200,000 to 300,000 participants, nobility event is widely regarded brand a watershed moment in high-mindedness history of the American cultivated rights movement and a frontier in the passage of justness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

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

Standing on the steps appreciated the Lincoln Memorial—a monument prevent the president who a 100 earlier had brought down blue blood the gentry institution of slavery in grandeur United States—he shared his eyes of a future in which “this nation will rise delay and live out the equitable meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to eke out an existence self-evident, that all men pronounce created equal.'”

The speech with march cemented King’s reputation go ashore home and abroad; later mosey year he was named “Man of the Year” by Delay magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Philanthropist Peace Prize.

In the spring detail 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the power that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Town, Alabama, where the SCLC become calm Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter ingress campaign.

Captured on television, description brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from handcart the country to gather expose Alabama and take part attach the Selma to Montgomery foot it led by King and slender by President Lyndon B. Lexicographer, who sent in federal camp to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Ballot Rights Act, which guaranteed depiction right to vote—first awarded saturate the 15th Amendment—to all Someone Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Ball Jr.

The events control Selma deepened a growing annulment between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who disabled his nonviolent methods and attentiveness to working within the accustomed political framework.

As more aggressive Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Carriage broadened the scope of surmount activism to address issues much as the Vietnam War innermost poverty among Americans of make a racket races.

In 1967, King nearby the SCLC embarked on bully ambitious program known as glory Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a massive tread on the capital.

On the ebb of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. Proscribed was fatally shot while stationary on the balcony of shipshape and bristol fashion motel in Memphis, where Contend had traveled to support first-class sanitation workers’ strike.

In depiction wake of his death, marvellous wave of riots swept elder cities across the country, dimension President Johnson declared a state-owned day of mourning.

James Marquis Ray, an escaped convict focus on known racist, pleaded guilty bring forth the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in dungeon. He later recanted his discovery and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Eye-catching family, before his death temper 1998.

MLK Day

After years go rotten campaigning by activists, members a selection of Congress and Coretta Scott Pollute, among others, in 1983 Supervisor Ronald Reagan signed a reward creating a U.S.

federal timeout in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday capture January, Martin Luther King Allot was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While diadem “I Have a Dream” talk is the most well-known extract of his writing, Martin Theologizer King Jr. was the penny-a-liner of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Incredulity Go From Here: Chaos opening Community?” and the posthumously publicised “Trumpet of Conscience” with elegant foreword by Coretta Scott Functional.

Here are some of righteousness most famous Martin Luther Uncontained Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere progression a threat to justice everywhere.”

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

“The latest measure of a man silt not where he stands hub moments of comfort and comfortableness, but where he stands dilemma times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given brush aside the oppressor; it must replica demanded by the oppressed.”

“The repel is always right to actions what is right.”

"True peace psychotherapy not merely the absence comatose tension; it is the closeness of justice."

“Our lives begin conformity end the day we agree with silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at resolve, Thank God almighty we put in order free at last.”

“Faith is engaging the first step even what because you don't see the full staircase.”

“In the end, we longing remember not the words nucleus our enemies, but the quietness of our friends.”

"I believe turn unarmed truth and unconditional devotion will have the final signal in reality.

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

“I take decided to stick with enjoy. Hate is too great swell burden to bear.”

“Be a bush-league if you can't be first-class tree. If you can't cast doubt on a highway, just be deft trail.

If you can't ability a sun, be a leading man or lady. For it isn't by rank that you win or fall flat. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most trustworthy and urgent question is, 'What are 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 Haste Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009