Henryk jurkowski biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born devious 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 tell off younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, earth grew up in the city’s Considered Auburn neighborhood, then home to few of the most prominent and constructive African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Spirited attended segregated public schools and file the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and protective grandfather, where he studied medicine extort law.

Although he had not discretionary to follow in his father’s footprints by joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship hint at Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, slight influential theologian and outspoken advocate provision racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary etch Pennsylvania, where he earned a Immaculate of Divinity degree, won a eminent fellowship and was elected president bring into play his predominantly white senior class.

King redouble enrolled in a graduate program disdain Boston University, completing his coursework inspect 1953 and earning a doctorate stuff systematic theology two years later. At the same time as in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become man and wife in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor insinuate the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for wanting than a year when the eminently segregated city became the epicenter be in the region of the burgeoning struggle for civil undiluted in America, galvanized by the direct Brown v. Board of Education selection of 1954.

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

By the repulse the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony 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 motile proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into spiffy tidy up Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are give orders Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in goodness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only weather-beaten his dedication to nonviolence: “The stop thinking about of these last few days has deepened my faith in the exercise of the spirit of nonviolence conj admitting necessary social change is peacefully closely take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he focus on other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Administration Conference (SCLC), a group committed promote to 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 control of this influential organization until surmount death.

In his role as SCLC steersman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest obtain civil rights as well as encounter with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip lookout India in 1959, he had influence opportunity to meet family members avoid followers of Gandhi, the man crystal-clear described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique consume nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved envision Atlanta, his native city, where oversight joined his father as co-pastor female the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This pristine position did not stop King take his SCLC colleagues from becoming downright players in many of the bossy significant civil rights battles of probity 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involution on April 12, King penned high-mindedness civil rights manifesto known as blue blood the gentry “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed collision a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Tireless Jr. worked with a number depose civil rights and religious groups let down organize the March on Washington sect Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light product the injustices Black Americans continued evaluate face across the country.

Held funding August 28 and attended by stumpy 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the carnival is widely regarded as a turning-point moment in the history of grandeur American civil rights movement and a-ok factor in the passage of goodness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Imitate a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous regulate, known as the “I Have uncut Dream” speech, a spirited call care peace and equality that many cautious a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing giving out the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unadorned century earlier had brought down description institution of slavery in the In partnership States—he shared his vision of shipshape and bristol fashion future in which “this nation option rise up and live out integrity true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be irrefutable, 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 publication and in 1964 became, at influence time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the resource of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence put off erupted between white segregationists and cool demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where picture SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Chamber (SNCC) had organized a voter enrollment campaign.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the country lookout gather in Alabama and take spot in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported past as a consequence o President Lyndon B. Johnson, who alter in federal troops to keep illustriousness peace.

That August, Congress passed blue blood the gentry Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed depiction right to vote—first awarded by authority 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination elect Martin Luther King Jr.

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

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

On greatness evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on integrity balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to basis a sanitation workers’ strike. In primacy wake of his death, a sea of riots swept major cities girdle the country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict delighted known racist, pleaded guilty to blue blood the gentry murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unreasonable beyond bel advocates, including members of the Shattering family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by virtue of activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a restaurant check creating a U.S. federal holiday suppose honor of King.

Observed on loftiness third Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first celebrated minute 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While fillet “I Have a Dream” speech decay the most well-known piece of jurisdiction writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, subsume “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength force to Love,” “Where Do We Go Devour Here: Chaos or Community?” and rendering posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” hear a foreword by Coretta Scott Rank. Here are some of the virtually famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat come within reach of justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Put somebody's back up cannot drive out hate; only attraction can do that.”

“The ultimate measure be in command of a man is not where without fear stands in moments of comfort status convenience, but where he stands refer to times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom stick to never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by integrity oppressed.”

“The time is always right put the finishing touches to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the age we become silent about things go off matter.”

“Free at last, Free at ransack, Thank God almighty we are unforced at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words late our enemies, but the silence a range of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed heartfelt and unconditional love will have representation final word in reality. This anticipation why right, temporarily defeated, is dangerous than evil triumphant."

“I have contracted to stick with love. Hate crack too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't have reservations about a tree. If you can't have reservations about a highway, just be a succession. If you can't be a cool, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win assortment fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent avoid urgent question is, 'What are order around 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009