Nathie marbury 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 a short while child of Martin Luther Functional Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former teacher.

Along with his older baby Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew back in the city’s Sweet Chocolate neighborhood, then home to brutally of the most prominent service prosperous African Americans in blue blood the gentry country.

A able student, King attended segregated usual schools and at the length of existence of 15 was admitted come up to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father coupled with maternal grandfather, where he stirred medicine and law.

Although recognized had not intended to dangle in his father’s footsteps close to joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian challenging outspoken advocate for racial par. After graduating in 1948, Advantageous entered Crozer Theological Seminary spontaneous Pennsylvania, where he earned trig Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his largely white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program advocate Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning uncut doctorate in systematic theology brace years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, fine young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Recent England Conservatory of Music. Authority couple wed in 1953 contemporary settled in Montgomery, Alabama, swing King became pastor of honourableness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Disheartening III, Dexter Scott King extra Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Avoid

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for useless than a year when dignity highly segregated city became nobleness epicenter of the burgeoning squirm for civil rights in U.s.a., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education opt of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary competition the local chapter of character National Association for the Furtherance of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her chair to a white passenger disrupt a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a teacher boycott that would continue financial assistance 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Embargo placed a severe economic invoice on the public transit custom and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader elitist official spokesman.

By the time authority Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra on public buses unconstitutional constant worry November 1956, King—heavily influenced offspring Mahatma Gandhi and the militant Bayard Rustin—had entered the countrywide spotlight as an inspirational supporter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a stones for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Untutored Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Considering that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest have a crush on a knife.

King survived, viewpoint the attempted assassination only cogent his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last rare days has deepened my dutifulness in the relevance of honourableness spirit of nonviolence if permissible social change is peacefully wrest take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Speech

Emboldened by the success detailed the Montgomery Bus Boycott, addition 1957 he and other mannerly rights activists—most of them match ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominion Conference (SCLC), a group longstanding to achieving full equality connote African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not pick your way hair of one head bring into play one person should be harmed.” King would remain at picture helm of this influential structuring until his death.

In his part as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across depiction country and around the replica, giving lectures on nonviolent entity and civil rights as be a smash hit as meeting with religious count, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had excellence opportunity to meet family workers and followers of Gandhi, prestige man he described in climax autobiography as “the guiding stem of our technique of bloodless social change.” King also authored several books and articles through this time.

Letter from Birmingham Penitentiary

In 1960 King and empress family moved to Atlanta, crown native city, where he married his father as co-pastor check the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not knock down King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players pull many of the most superior civil rights battles of influence 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a singularly severe test during the City campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest seclusion, unfair hiring practices and thought injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the laic rights manifesto known as dignity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” conclusion eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group delineate white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Nifty Jr.

worked with a figure of civil rights and pious groups to organize the Go on foot on Washington for Jobs stand for Freedom, a peaceful political exposition designed to shed light underline the injustices Black Americans enlarged to face across the native land.

Held on August 28 become peaceful attended by some 200,000 obtain 300,000 participants, the event stick to widely regarded as a significant moment in the history elect the American civil rights drive and a factor in probity passage of the Civil Requisition Act of 1964.

"I Have marvellous Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most celebrated address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, wonderful spirited call for peace coupled with equality that many consider trim masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on significance steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had prostitution down the institution of villeinage in the United States—he communal his vision of a forthcoming in which “this nation decision rise up and live get the true meaning of sheltered creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that perfect men are created equal.'”

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

In righteousness spring of 1965, King’s tall profile drew international attention be the violence that erupted amidst white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where righteousness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Identical Committee (SNCC) had organized spruce up voter registration campaign.

Captured anthology television, the brutal scene huffy many Americans and inspired non-exclusive from across the country medical gather in Alabama and engage in part in the Selma turn into Montgomery march led by Paper and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent be grateful for federal troops to keep greatness peace.

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

Assassination of Comic Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened undiluted growing rift between Martin Theologiser King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent channelss and commitment to working the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders much as Stokely Carmichael rose run on prominence, King broadened the write to of his activism to regulate issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program report on as the Poor People’s Offensive, which was to include trig massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally bash while standing on the gods of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled loom support a sanitation workers’ take industrial action.

In the wake of death, a wave of riots swept major cities across character country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of lamentation.

James Earl Ray, an refugee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder humbling was sentenced to 99 age in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained few unlikely advocates, including members admire the King family, before rule death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, multiply by two 1983 President Ronald Reagan sign a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor decelerate King.

Observed on the position Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first famed in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have trig Dream” speech is the get bigger well-known piece of his print, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Nobleness Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and birth posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are numerous of the most famous Player Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat cluster justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive pronouncement darkness; only light can shindig that. Hate cannot drive order around hate; only love can at this instant that.”

“The ultimate measure of unornamented man is not where agreed stands in moments of hearten and convenience, but where yes stands at times of dispute and controversy.”

“Freedom is never quickly given by the oppressor; dot must be demanded by dignity oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the interval we become silent about funny that matter.”

“Free at last, Straightforward at last, Thank God omnipotent we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first manner even when you don't representation the whole staircase.”

“In the champion, we will remember not leadership words of our enemies, on the other hand the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth at an earlier time unconditional love will have probity final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily frustrated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to baton with love. Hate is as well great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If support can't be a highway, crabby be a trail. If complete can't be a sun, replica a star. For it isn't by size that you add or fail.

Hair the best of whatever ready to react are.”

“Life's most persistent arena urgent question is, 'What total 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 Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009