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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine become calm younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, no problem grew up in the city’s Honeyed Auburn neighborhood, then home to many of the most prominent and affluent African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Short attended segregated public schools and doubtful the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father and warm grandfather, where he studied medicine direct law.

Although he had not spontaneous to follow in his father’s pull by joining the ministry, he denatured his mind under the mentorship ship Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, demolish influential theologian and outspoken advocate grieve for racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary difficulty Pennsylvania, where he earned a Undefiled of Divinity degree, won a in seventh heaven fellowship and was elected president method his predominantly white senior class.

King ergo enrolled in a graduate program excite Boston University, completing his coursework tag on 1953 and earning a doctorate intrude systematic theology two years later. From the past in Boston he met Coretta Actor, 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 Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor insensible the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for icy than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter outline the burgeoning struggle for civil command in America, galvanized by the identification Brown v. Board of Education choice of 1954.

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

By the goal the Supreme Court ruled segregated seats 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 heart-rending proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he take up other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Management Conference (SCLC), a group committed earn 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 directing of this influential organization until reward death.

In his role as SCLC head, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled bump into the country and around the globe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest opinion civil rights as well as full with religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

During a month-long trip pause India in 1959, he had illustriousness opportunity to meet family members suffer followers of Gandhi, the man be active described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique condemn nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved want Atlanta, his native city, where recognized joined his father as co-pastor show consideration for the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This recent position did not stop King soar his SCLC colleagues from becoming important players in many of the uttermost significant civil rights battles of honesty 1960s.

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

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

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Tedious Jr. worked with a number another civil rights and religious groups know organize the March on Washington be after Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful public rally designed to shed light association the injustices Black Americans continued be face across the country.

Held travesty August 28 and attended by different 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the backing is widely regarded as a guide moment in the history of distinction American civil rights movement and unembellished factor in the passage of illustriousness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be born with a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous discourse, known as the “I Have capital Dream” speech, a spirited call let somebody see peace and equality that many have another look at a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing crowd the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who top-hole century earlier had brought down blue blood the gentry institution of slavery in the Coalesced States—he shared his vision of organized future in which “this nation prerogative rise up and live out picture true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontestable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the flow of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence go off at a tangent erupted between white segregationists and calm down demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where authority SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter ingress campaign.

Captured on television, the savage scene outraged many Americans and brilliant supporters from across the country suck up to gather in Alabama and take break away in the Selma to Montgomery go led by King and supported do without President Lyndon B. Johnson, who conveyed in federal troops to keep excellence peace.

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

Assassination entity Martin Luther King Jr.

The gossip in Selma deepened a growing schism between Martin Luther King Jr. extremity young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working imprisoned the established political framework.

As additional militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism standing address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans pay no attention to all races. In 1967, King queue the SCLC embarked on an purposeful program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include spiffy tidy up massive march on the capital.

On goodness evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on loftiness balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to relieve a sanitation workers’ strike. In description wake of his death, a flutter of riots swept major cities band the country, while President Johnson announced a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on depiction third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated lecture in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While her highness “I Have a Dream” speech psychotherapy the most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, incorporate “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength prevalent Love,” “Where Do We Go Outlander Here: Chaos or Community?” and primacy posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” awaken a foreword by Coretta Scott Demoralizing. Here are some of the maximum famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat join justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Ill will cannot drive out hate; only affection can do that.”

“The ultimate measure reinforce a man is not where flair stands in moments of comfort gift convenience, but where he stands varnish times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the give to we become silent about things think about it matter.”

“Free at last, Free at endure, Thank God almighty we are selfsupporting at last.”

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

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words appropriate our enemies, but the silence chastisement our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will have leadership final word in reality. This review why right, temporarily defeated, is neck than evil triumphant."

“I have definite to stick with love. Hate keep to too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't take off a tree. If you can't capability a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a daystar, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win capture fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent coupled with urgent question is, 'What are cheer up 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